CAN WINTER BE FAR AWAY

Standing out on the embankment, this morning, overlooking the brown, soft weave of grasses down in the autumn-season Bog,.....listening to the gusts of wind wheezing through the evergreens, and its moan from the hollow of lakeside, makes the watcher in the woods feel very isolated and cold......even though today I can clearly see the little homes that line the road of our neighborhood. It is a haunting scene none the less, yet one that evokes such strong feelings of life and after-life, as this place experiences the gradual, profound change of seasons. I could stand out here for hours, watching the transitions, awaiting the first wind-burst spirals of new snow, to dance through Robert Frost’s poetic Birches, and Washington Irving’s literary haunted hollow. I don’t mind the wind cutting through my jacket or the tips of my toes starting to tingle. I am transfixed by nature’s subtle changes, moment by moment, the play of light and shadow, on occasion when the sun pokes through the November cloud-cover, and then the violent gusts that rip down boughs and sweep these bog grasses close to the earth, covering the still-trickling brooks that tumble down the elevations toward the lakeshore.

At moments the sudden silence allows you to hear, ever so faintly, like the flow of life itself, the crystalline fall of a miniature cataract, somewhere in the midst of this quagmire of pre-history. It is at this time of the rolling year, I most celebrate the seasons. Most of my writing and art contemporaries have little use for this dull month, of lesser contrasts and much less inspiration. I find it compelling for those very reasons, and accept its characteristics with humble appreciation. I can sit here, on a fallen log, and make notes for most of the morning, and be willing to return in the afternoon if conditions are not too harsh for the woodland voyeur.

It is such a pleasure to have this oasis amidst the urban progress of the day. This is the way I choose to spend my free time in Gravenhurst.