Colorful hillsides lit as if from the inside by the low rays of late afternoon golden post-equinoctial sun: New England on a postcard, cookie tin, travel brochure.

Observation: If pattern recognition makes us human, autumn issues an open invitation for sounding and logging the breadth and depth of our humanity. Especially up close, walking a dripping hillside, experiencing the colorful, mottled, dappled, speckled, variegated, stippled, rotting, dripping, blooming, falling muchiness of fall. Showcasing the reddest spot, the berry, the drop of water, the rush of falling leaves – displayed in endless generosity.

I, of course, readily recognize myself in the shiny yellow-and-red leaf, yet mottled with black spots, rotted in one corner, and with a spider hanging off one edge. And in the scurrying to get everything ready for the winter. Such a huge act of hope, autumn is, in nature. Storing up food and seed, not just against the leaner days, but in full confidence that spring will come around to let them be deployed. It’s tough to keep that hope, this season, but I’m working on it. The carpenter and I are stacking wood as if our very comfort depended on it.

Click on one of the thumbnails and you’ll see the album. If you have sort-of-high speed internet like I do, that may take a moment to load.