“A landscape now wholly autumnal,” to use words from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s journal. The words are quoted by Lawrence Raab in his own poem “Hawthorne on His Way Home.” I have written about Raab’s poem more than once in this blog over the years.
It is a landscape in keeping with the man walking down the road. It is a landscape in keeping with a man walking away from a part of his history. The winter that would follow this solemn autumn afternoon might benefit from a steady companion, but it might just as well be faced alone, standing outside the familiar comforts, snow falling.
I know now that I was frightened this time last year. I was a man sixty years old and in a month I would turn sixty-one. It may not seem a big difference in age, but for someone who had just spent months getting used to his fifties’ being over, the approach of sixty-one was a definitive move into the new decade.
I am much less frightened after the year that has passed.
4 comments:
Friends and family who are more deeply into their sixties are allowed a bemused chuckle at this posting.
Et oui les années passent !!
Parlez nous de votre séjour à Paris.
Jo d'Avignon
I imagine New England is the ideal place for autumn and Hallowe'en.
Words and autumn leaves; very nice to read this. I have followed your blog and enjoy it. I have read just about everything Edwin Way Teale has written. I wish I'd been with you there in the Connecticut forest and paths of Trail Wood. And, yes, the age thing, well it bothers some more than others, I think. I'm going to be 59 years in Jan. It does bother me, as well. Take care, good health, keep writing strong, peace. -Bobby C.
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