Going to the new cemetery

October 30, 2015

October 30

Going to the new cemetery,* I see that the scarlet oak leaves have still some brightness; perhaps the latest of the oaks.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 30, 1855

*Sleepy Hollow Cemetery was dedicated on September 29, 1855 ~  Wikipedia. See October 29, 1855 ("When the leaves fall, the whole earth is a cemetery pleasant to walk in. I love to wander and muse over them in their graves, returning to dust again. Here are no lying nor vain epitaphs. The scent of their decay is pleasant to me. I buy no lot in the cemetery which my townsmen have just consecrated with a poem and an auction  paying so much for a choice. Here is room enough for me.")

The scarlet oak leaves have still some brightness. See October 30, 1858 ("The scarlet oak especially withers very slowly and gradually, and retains some brightness to the middle of November,");  October 26, 1858 ("The scarlet oak generally is not in prime till now, or even later.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Scarlet Oak

Scarlet oak leaves 

– perhaps latest of the oaks

have still some brightness.

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Going to the new cemetery

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2024

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