Autumn: River of Birds

To do the tidy thing for the winter town yard, I must trim back the tops of all my plants, pull out the annuals and leave the garden beds naked in their dirt-skins.  The grass is expected to lie naked of leaves.  For this we will not remove them as much as chop finely with our lawn mower.  

The leaves are not raked.  The gardens stand waiting for a healthy cleansing of this past summer's growth.  The hard freeze came.  There is no more hope for keeping on the few hardy marigolds and mums.  Petunias of unusual vigor held out in defiant blooms against the frosty background of fallen leaves.  The leaves I have not raked.  How can I rake away the leaves which kept the last few flowers bright for my pleasure? 

I'm pleased, perhaps somewhat perversely, by how well our gardens grew with very little effort.  The neighbor with the "perfect," lawn works like a fiend; mowing and watering daily, fertilizing, spraying chemicals, pulling weeds, planting annuals, trimming back tops. He is never smiling or satisfied at his work.  For me it is an effort of joy, the blossoms sharing their secret smiles with me as we look into the sun.

Now it is cold, and the sun warms my face and the earth a little, enough only to melt the water in the bird's bath.  Under those leaves in the garden lies the sleeping joy of next spring's bright green and rainbow of flowers.  The chill wind pushes at me as I think, bear-like, of a warm den and a long nap.  Clouds scuttle overhead, blocking my sun, and out of the north comes a river of black birds, screaming their irritation as they pass southward.  I feel a wild flush, and wish to join them, running as they fly, over land, across water, on and on until we come to summer again.  The wind pushes them on, and me back, as the den and the nap remind me that I cannot fly, nor run over rivers and across cities and mountains and plains.  A ragged gasp of disappointment shudders my frame as the river of birds stretches from horizon to horizon.  Cannot an adult spin and laugh out loud for amazement and joy at the wonders?  The solemn square houses and church face me in stern reproach,  as I run my small yard's length, then sit in the leaves and laugh at the river in the sky, and the bear in me.