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Autumn Skylights

Day by day, I counted down autumn’s fierce turn then dying flame in the kitchen skylight until killing frost crept across the glass and a single leaf fluttered, backlit and oxblood red.

I had surrendered nature’s four-color glory to a daily fixation with an HL-2270DW black-and-white laser printer. No more. I fled in search of season remnants—tinted flares yielding mute to pattern and texture.

Longwood-Gardens-Late-Autumn
Lemon ginkgo leaves massed like trembling sulfur butterflies, and monochromatic husks papered over the wildflower meadow. Cottony wisps clouded seed-dotted milkweed pods. Scatterings were in the wind. Monarch butterflies beat southward weeks ago.

A beech dying white lifted my eyes. Why did that skylight—an azure opening laid bare by winter skeletons—root me to hope?

autumn milkweed in wildflower field at Longwood Gardens

Dense

9 Comments

  1. Bea dM

    So apt, we get caught up in monochrome dialy grind and miss the glory of the seasons. Glad you did catch the remnants – the foursquare composition is a delight. How lucky you are to have a skylight!

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