A Book of the Seasons: November 21.

November 21.

I see my future

the world suddenly flooded

with a serene light.

These forms and colors

so adapted to my eye

cannot be improved.

We are made to love

pond and meadow, as the wind

to ripple water.

November 21, 1850

Two little dippers,

one up-stream, the other down,

this still, overcast day.

November 21, 1858

November 21, 2016

Probably the bulk of the scarlet oak leaves are fallen. November 21, 1858

 I find very handsome ones strewn over the floor of Potter’s maple swamp. They are brown above, but still purple beneath. November 21, 1858

These are so deeply cut and the middle and lobes of the leaf so narrow that they look like the remnant of leafy stuff out of which leaves have been cut, or like scrap-tin. The lobes are remarkably sharp pointed and armed with long bristles. Yes, they lie one above another like masses of scrap-tin. November 21, 1858

 

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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 © 2009-2019