Midwest Fall Breathes its Last

The wind has picked up, the last breath of Fall sending leaves showering down and skittering along the pavement.

They lay piled thickly on rooftops and on the abandoned truck across the street. They clog gutters and gather at bases of bushes and trees. Eerily, they hang among the wispy remnants of Halloween cobweb.

Under the crisp blue sky, the whine of leaf blowers rings through the air, making the gentle rustle of our old-fashioned rakes sound more like a whisper than work. We are being shushed.

I laugh as the kids swing high and leap into space, plummeting into an enormous pile of crackling brown. They giggle as they crawl among the ladybugs, leaves stuck in hair and hoods and caught in fleece.

We tidy up after nature's clutter, cutting back summer's bounteous growth, now simultaneously overgrown and skeletal. Bringing order to chaos is a satisfying venture.

The birds are gone. And I feel the need to fill a feeder for the few stragglers who remain. The outdoors is muffled and smells of mold and dampness. There are no bees, only worms thriving on decay.

We witness as the colors of Autumn become the shivering nakedness of winter.



- Midwest Mom

April Showers and Midwest Flowers

Spring is a gorgeous time in a Midwest garden, especially when you have camera in hand.

The past week has been rainy and warm, perfect weather for everything that grows. We had a brief respite from the wet yesterday, so I took quiet time in my garden for renewal. I found that the greens were greener than ever and much of the garden had sprung into bloom. Every corner of the yard had a pleasant surprise.

There were fragrant lilacs, waving in the breeze ...



... and tulips galore.




The grassy places were filled with wild violets, giving the yard a purple cast.



And these petite beauties had even started peeking out from their hiding places.




But the most spectacular sight of the season was one we will have to remember in our minds alone -- one no gardener could have planned or planted.

During a warm spell on Sunday afternoon, we hiked a local nature area with my parents. Our trail overlooked the river, and as the river-view emerged from the trees, before us lay endless acres of bluebells. It looked as though a misty pale blue fog was descending upon the shoreline. Just inside the trees, blue morphed into pale pink mounds of Spring Beauties.

How I wished I had my camera, just to share the beauty of it. It was breathtaking. And we stood in silence, drinking it in, for quite a long time.

At long last we continued on, circling down to the rivers edge -- a place we often play during hikes in the summertime. The water level was higher than usual, so the rocky shoals were all but buried. We spied a northern water snake innocuously sunning itself, and left it alone to enjoy the warmth. The boys picked along the shoreline in their water shoes and rolled-up jeans, looking for fossil rocks while my daughter plunged into the shallows. We took care to explain the swifter, deeper Spring current, but increased caution could not hamper their explorer's spirit. Even in the shallows, we played our hearts out.

The family returned home exhausted and happy, with muddy pants and sunkissed faces. I thought, such is the wonder of Midwest Springtime. And my father remarked to me on what a beautiful home we have made here. The image of the field of bluebells, he said, will remain with him for a long time.

I feel the same way. There is no place on earth I would rather be.

- Midwest Mom

Little, Nameless, Unremembered Acts

Life can surprise you with truth every so often.
Today Wordsworth speaks to me.
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Lines Written A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above Tintern.

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Among the woods and copses lose themselves,
Nor, with their green and simple hue, disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms
Green to the very door; and wreathes of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire
The hermit sits alone.
Though absent long,
These forms of beauty have not been to me,

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart,
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration: -- feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,
As may have had no trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life;
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lighten'd -- that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things. If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft,
In darkness, and amid the many shapes
Of joyless day-lights; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart,
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee
O sylvan Wye! Thou wanderer through the wood
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was, when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led; more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by,)
To me was all in all. -- I cannot paint

What then I was, The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite: a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. -- That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur: other gifts
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Not harsh or grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye and ear, both what they half-create,
This line has a close resemblance to an admirable line of Young,
the exact expression of which I cannot recollect.

And what perceive; well pleased to recognize
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.

Nor, perchance,
If I were not thus taught, Should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me, here, upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! And this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our chearful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; Oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,
If I should be, where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; And that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came,
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love, oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Now wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake.

~William Wordsworth