Achingly Beautiful

What must the first European explorers of this New World have thought when they saw their first September and October in the northern colonies? Nothing in their deforested homelands could have prepared them for the Fall of the leaves.

Bucks County is sublime right now. You can have your Sienna. You can have your Schwarzwald. You can have your Provence. In the morning, the air is cool and dewey, traces of fog at the edges of the fields, and the trees are ablaze. Brilliant red maples, irridescent yellow birches, even the subtle shades of brown on the oak trees are just magnificent.

In New York City, the only way to really judge the season is for the most part by the clothes you wear. A tank top becomes a flannel shirt becomes a fall jacket becomes an overcoat. This unearthy beauty will be washed into winter colors: the deep green of the conifers, the rich gold of winter wheat fields, the oak leaves with us till spring, a reddish-brown that has always reminded me of dried blood, and here and there, from bittersweet, from witch hazel, from holly... some shock of bright color. Along the River Road, icecicles cling to the bedrock outcroppings, growing massive during the cold months and persisting sometimes until May. During cold winters, icefloes choke the Delaware. There is something absolutely transcendent about the way frost glistens on a fallow field under the pure clear light of a full moon.

Love it here.

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