The scent of the year, passing away

October 20.

October 20, 2015

P. M. — To Nawshawtuct. 

Agreeable to me is the scent of the withered and decaying leaves and pads, pontederias, on each side as I paddle up the river this still cloudy day, with the faint twittering or chirping of a sparrow still amid the bare button-bushes. It is the scent of the year, passing away like a decaying fungus, but leaving a rich mould, I trust.

I see on the dead top of a hickory, twittering very much like swallows, eighteen and more bluebirds, perhaps preparing to migrate.

I take some satisfaction in eating my food, as well as in being nourished by it. I feel well at dinner-time as well as after it.  I enjoy more drinking water at a clear spring than out of a goblet at a gentleman’s table. I like best the bread which I have baked, the garment which I have made, the shelter which I have constructed, the fuel which I have gathered.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, October 20, 1855

Agreeable to me is the scent of the withered and decaying leaves It is the scent of the year, passing away but leaving a rich mould, See October 20, 1853 ("How beautiful they go to their graves! — painted of a thousand hues. . . .They are about to add a leaf's breadth to the depth of the soil. We are all the richer for their decay."); See also October 22, 1853 (" Consider what a vast crop is thus annually shed upon the earth. . . .This annual decay and death, this dying by inches, before the whole tree at last lies down and turns to soil. . . .They teach us how to die. How many flutterings before they rest quietly in their graves! . . .By what subtle chemistry they will mount up again, climbing by the sap in the trees. The ground is all parti-colored with them. For beautiful variety can any crop be compared with them?"); October 17, 1857 (" How beautifully they die, making cheerfully their annual contribution to the soil! ")

Eighteen and more bluebirds, perhaps preparing to migrate.. See October 1, 1853 ("Robins and bluebirds collect and flit about.")