The Year Passes

The winds blowing in from the East Coast Hurricane stripped the leaves from all the trees as far inland as the Indiana forests. Few  leaves pictured here are still waiting to fall and we are preparing for winter as another year passes.

Magic Hour

Every day there comes a time right before the sun sinks below the horizon when the light turns gold. Whether you are in the forest or somewhere outside of it everything turns to magic.

Hurry---the Summer, like love, never lasts

THROUGH laughing leaves the sunlight comes,

Turning the green to gold;

The bee about the heather hums,

And the morning air is cold

Here on the breezy woodland side,

Where we two ride.

Through laughing leaves on golden hair

The sunlight glances down,

And makes a halo round her there,

And crowns her with a crown

Queen of the sunrise and the sun,

As we ride on.

The wanton wind has kissed her face,

His lips have left a rose,

He found her cheek so sweet a place

For kisses, I suppose,

He thought he ’d leave a sign,

that so others might know.

The path grows narrower as we ride,

The green boughs close above,

And overhead, and either side,

The wild birds sing of Love:

But ah, she is not listening

To what they sing!

Till I take up the wild-birds’ song,

And word by word unfold

Its meaning as we ride along,

And when my tale is told,

I turn my eyes to hers again,

And then, and then,

The bridle path more narrow grows

The leaves shut out the sun;

Where the wind’s lips left their one rose

My own leave more than one:

While the leaves murmur up above,

And laugh for love.

This was the place; you see the sky

Now ’twixt the branches bare;

About the path the dead leaves lie,

And songless is the air;

All’s changed since then,

for that, you know, was long ago.

Let us ride on! The wind is cold,

Let us ride on ride fast!

T is winter, and we knew of old

That love could never last

Without the summer and the sun!

Let us ride on!

In the Wood by Herbert Edwin Clarke

Following the Footsteps at Forest Edge

I HAD withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:       
You shook your pensive head as who should say,
‘I dare not—too far in his footsteps stray—
He must seek me would he undo the wrong.

Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
Behind low boughs the trees let down outside;        
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But ’tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.
A Dream Pang from a Boy's Will by Robert Frost 

Misty Morning

A misty forest path for your Monday morning.