Autumn

AUTUMN
W.F.C.

Dawn: the first soft light, chasing the night, and slowly painting the morning sky a pale blue - as the star covered black wool blanket of twilight folds behind the snow covered hills in the west.

The large orange sun peers over the horizon, and greets each face whose eyes have looked for it's coming each day, since time began it's endless journey.

A bird, warmed by it's rays, stretches her wings, then hopping - leaves in flight to search for food to fill it's hunger of the night.

A farmer and his wife are eating breakfast, while watching the golden beams from the window dance on the wooden floor. And they're glad God built such stillness into the early morning.

Their youngest child climbs from bed, and standing on his toes, looks out the attic window at the white mist rising off the lake to meet the air, and thinks it looks rather like the cotton candy machine at the drug store in town - as it comes off the sides and wistfully gathers on the stick that the old man turns in the center, to be presented to him, when he can afford it, a large round tasty ball, mysteriously made.

As the sun continues it's trek higher in the sky, it drives before it the autumn chill, and warms the heart to pleasant thoughts of the now passing summer - as time turns again to the approach of the cold winter winds, when a blanket of snow covers the countryside, and the explosion of life is silenced to a quiet murmur.

In the town old men talk in the street, as they have for many years, of the money they've made and lost in their crops - and how each of them wants one of the new cars Henry Ford has come out with, like the one they saw in the 4th of July parade.

High in the hills that circle the valley, a mother wolf watches her fast growing pups tumbling and playing in the tall grass dotted by red and yellow wild flowers which still have their blooms. She watches knowing they're learning the skills they'll need to be swift hunters, and strength to endure the lone hard winter ahead.

Tired children, from the long day at school, watch from their desks the large old clock in the corner, noticing how the hands move so much slower at this time of the afternoon - knowing that right now their mothers are putting more wood in the stove to finish cooking the freshly cured venison their fathers brought back from their recent hunting trips. -- Then as the teacher announces school is out for the day - they become suddenly aware of where they are, their tiredness leaves, and grabbing their books they dash for the door. - Eager to get home, but stopping every few feet to examine some new treasure by the side of the road.

A warm light rain falls gently to earth from billowing swiftly moving white and gray clouds, and is soaked up as soon as it hits the dry leaf covered ground.

The children having eaten a large meal, at which their father thought of many jokes to keep them and their mother in laughter, went out to play by the old truck - that since it had caught fire sometime back, had become the favorite meeting place of all the neighborhood children. Being called by their mother, they exhaustedly trudged in and settled on the carpet by the stove - listening as their father reads by lantern in the slowly fading light, the Bible. After saying their prayers, the children went up the wooden steps to their beds, their dreams, and tomorrow.

The large orange sun has just dropped below the now silhouetted hills, and the clouds above are adorning their changing coats of red and gold.

As the last light ebbed away through the window, and the stars appear as jewels in a black velvet sky - a woman turns to her husband, and tells him she loves him, and he takes her hand and kisses her softly.

On the quiet lake by their farm, a breeze stirs the leaves of the giant cottonwood trees. - In one, a horned owl turns his head, and it's large eyes shine with the reflected light of the moon that has just risen, and hangs like half a dish - in the cold autumn night.