CHANGING THE GUARD

Evening Light, Jamestown, NC

The long, golden rays of the setting sun cast a sharp contrast onto the slender trunks of a crepe myrtle tree and transparently filter through delicate strands of decorative grass. A distant chorus of crows caw a litany of curses after a hawk that had sought solace from the days hunt in the tree top canopy. A departing airline’s jet engine breaks the silence and its alien sound rises and then falls as it passes overhead, giving way to a distant drone and then silence again. Even the three crows give up their taunting and wing overhead toward their night’s secluded roost in the trees. Not a leaf is stirring amidst the soothing calls of distant insects settling into the resurgent green grasses. And in the midst of the peaceful calm of the glowing fall sunbeams, you can sense the seasons changing the guard.

The hot days of summer quietly slip away and acquiesce to the cool nights of fall. The temperature drop prompts green liquid chlorophyll to ease from the tree leaves finally revealing their true colors. Rose branches make one last desperate reach to the heavens and unfurl their colorful blooms in silent and reverent wonder. Song birds lower their singing in response to their circadian systems slowing to the rhythm of the cool ambient air surrounding them. All creation pauses and breathes a sigh as the growing season surrenders to a melancholy time of winnowing down into fallow fields and barren landscapes.

Another circle of life has marked the earth’s passage around the sun. The sky turns a clear blue grey while a trough of colder air passes, triggering an ethereal fog that settles into the low lying valleys and lakes. Spirits rise and gracefully dance on the water’s surface to herald the autumnal equinox. A brightly shining harvest moon provides just enough reflective light to enable rural farmers to gather the last remnants of the growing season’s bounty. And God whispers through the stillness, “Well done, rest and be at peace” as dark shadows silently descend on the motionless land and its muted inhabitants.