Walking Down the Country Road

Walking down the country road this morning, I noticed the swamp in late fall has lovely colors.
The chalky purple of the wild blackberry canes, the cinnabar of frosted weeds, and the garnet of oak seedlings seem like music.

Farther on, the cutover fields have variations on the theme of brown, from tawny to copper.
Squirrels go a-marketing under the hazel bushes, for, under the burs, the satiny brown nuts begin to show.
A fawn-colored rabbit hops ahead along the grey stone wall, and a pheasant leads three females toward the thicket.

As I pass the neighbor's old red barn, the smell of dried hay is as sweet as honey.
Pumpkins and cabbages and smoky hubbard squash lie in the garden.
Blue smoke rises from a pile of burning cornstalks.

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness," Keats called it. 
And also, "Think not of spring, thou has thy beauty too."