Sunday, December 20, 2009

Fin d'automne

Endings sound better in French. And autumn gets sort of lost in in its last, shared month, winter-trademarked December. Especially in the wake of today's blizzard, and the foot-deep snow we dug through, attention should be paid to the season that had its last full day today. Au revoir, automne. Even in your winter guise, we knew you.

The sunset tonight belonged to autumn, maybe a going-away present. I was up at Menotomy Rocks park. I thought the sky would stay the soft amethyst it showed at 4:10, but it intensified, turned into a hard-to name burning color, maybe vermillion, an orange-violet that seemed to bypass red. Meanwhile, a father promised his son hot cocoa when they got home. Two sledders made a go of a woodsy hill. A skater was shoveling the small frozen pond. A dog sported a handsome red sweater that it must have gotten for Chanukah. And the surrounding houses contributed their jeweled lights and one bright flat-screen TV football game to set off the dusk.

Many choices for today's advent surprise, with the snow and the aftermath, but I'll go with that amethyst to vermillion sunset through the mesh of bare trees, a kind of farewell to autumn from autumn.

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