An Alabaster Brow

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the year
On the earth, her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array;
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling
For the year;
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling;
Come, Months, come away,
Put on white, black, and gray;
Let your light sisters play—
Ye, follow the bier
Of the dead cold year,
And make her grave green with tear on tear.
-”Autumn” by Percy Bysshe Shelley

What marks autumn as my favorite season is how much I identify with its mood—sun-drenched and crisp at the outset, but as you go deeper, there comes a melancholy, a silvery grey. It is the seasonal hour of contemplation, reflection, and quietude. There is a beauty in sadness, in aloneness, a beauty to be found in a drizzle of tears. Absorb the beauty in the blue, the grey, the B flats, the C Sharps, the minor chords and requiem. Listen to the elegiacal chorus that draws us closer to our emotional selves.

As autumn leaves fall, I feel increasingly at home because I am one who is comfortable reclining in that inner chamber, lingering there a minute longer, growing from the inside-out, allowing feelings to creep and slumber, living in a room of my own.

Autumn is over the long leaves that love us,
And over the mice in the barley sheaves;
Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,
And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.

-”The Falling of the Leaves” by William B. Yeats

Although the calendar marks September 22 as the first day of autumn, like clockwork, every year the weather cools at the outset of October, inviting that delicious crisp nip in the air, which serves as both a scent and a tactile feeling, a signal that the world is undergoing a new phase.

I love the transition of summer to fall. Leaves begin to stray and nature’s backdrop transforms into a kaleidoscopic mélange of pumpkin oranges, forest greens, cornfield yellows, and earthy browns. Breezes waft about and sunlight gains a superlative power at sunrise and sunset, illuminating the world in hyperkinetic color. Cooler days are washed by the beauty of serene melancholy, quiet but never sullen, like a single browning leaf falling from a branch.

Painting: Claude Monet. Weeping Willow. 1919. Oil on canvas. Musée Marmottan, Paris, France. From Olga’s Gallery at abcgallery.com

One of the inevitable statements that I reiterate with friends is, “I don’t know if I love life, but I love beautiful things.” It underlines my extreme appreciation of all things beautiful, whether it is a richly textured book or painting, sumptuous cinematic or culinary experience, a heartbreaking piece of music, breathtaking landscapes, exquisite gowns, or a stunning human face.

Beauty is everywhere and I think to be attuned to it is a privilege. I find that my seeking senses always approach beauty with quiet exhilaration. Moreover, it is amazing how you cannot get acclimatized to what strikes you as remarkably beautiful. I am always left in the best mood with a glowing smile radiating this palpable positive energy from deep within that makes me at once serene and worshipful of life.