This morning the air brings me the tint of caramel. The soft pudding kind. I look around for any clues for where this might be coming from, but my early morning eyes do not determine anything in particular that could account for such a scent. The day is opening quietly, and it brings with it a gentle sweetness.
Alt text says this week’s photo is a person holding a fried onion ring. It actually is and it is a photo of Kath peering through said food item during a lunch date recently. Whilst looking for a photo for this week’s blog I realised that most of the pictures in my camera roll over the last week of so have been of the images needed for my anniversary poems. Squares with numbers and text on, all pretty much the same except for the number. I chuckle as I realise that this might well indicate that I have not been head up noticing the world very much for a while.
It also brings to mind two joyful glimpses I have had this past week. There has been the joy of a ginger cat and of a jay both catching my eye from pillars in my garden. Maybe they are also my mini signs to look up from the page or the screen more.
When I have seen jays before I have often caught of a glimpse of them as they have flown across short spaces within forest areas and I have always felt lucky to catch this rare flash of their distinct feathers. The one this week, in my own garden, caught my attention as I was settling to work at my laptop. On being observed it flew from the wall and thudded to a stop on the roof above me. I went outside to take a closer look, but it had already moved on by the time I got outside. The ginger cat had been watching me one night as I was unloading the tumble dryer in the back porch. I felt that wonderful sense of being lifted from my own world because I was being observed in a kind and curious way. And there studying me was the lovely solid looking cat that has recently been sleeping in a sheltered spot in our garden. We blinked at each other and then, as I smiled at the thought of being noticed whilst doing a boring but necessary job, off he went.
I am sort of making a note to self to notice more things on my daily walk and this brings to mind the fact that it feels like a solid fitness thing to do at this time of year when compared to the lightness of taking the same walk in spring when the daffodils are emerging. Photos at this time of year also seem to be of solid things like tree trunks against the sky or cows so maybe I will look for the light as I stroll out and see where it is that I find it in this new Autumn. I know it was in the sunrise and sunset of Saturday into Sunday, and I know those two studied views gladdened my heart.
Here’s THEY ARE AUTUMN which I wrote after noticing the fall of acorns under an oak tree as the seasons were changing one year. It was published by Black Bough Poetry as part of their Silver Branch poetry feature.
THEY ARE AUTUMN
And they look delicious
smoothed brown on the ground
with their snug little green hats.
And I want to eat some
but I have forgotten their name
and I don’t know if you can.
I give in to the temptation
to tread on some,
to feel them hold out
before my weight cracks them open.
All I know is they fell from the tree above.
Its leaves are telling me it’s an oak,
and I know so much depends upon this tree,
but it takes me all day
to remember acorns.
Sue Finch 