Leaves of Gold

This morning, I had a piece of apple in all its apple perfection:  crisp and sweet with just the slightest sourness so that the sweetness wasn't too cloying.  I didn't go to an apple orchard to pick this apple, although I spent the last 5 days near orchards.  

No, I got it at a grocery store.  I only needed an apple or two to go with our meal, but the 5 pound bag of apples from a nearby orchard was cheaper than all the other apples that came from the other side of the country.  I've been doing a good job of eating the apples that I buy, so I bought the 5 pound bag for less than 2 apples from the other coast would have cost.

Yesterday I drove away from the mountain home that I love and the man that I love.  Happily, it's not a permanent situation. In a few weeks, I'll drive back.

It was a glorious time to be in the mountains, and I don't use that word lightly.  The days were warm, with highs in the upper 70's.  The leaves were close to perfect, at least on some of the trees.  But Sunday night a front was moving through, and by the time I left on Monday, the road away from my house had so many leaves on it and by it that I drove down the middle, just to make sure I wouldn't accidentally end up in a ditch.

I thought of these lines while on the first part of my drive, while it was still dark:

The road away 

from you is paved with gold,

wet leaves shaken from their perches.

I kept playing with lines and possibilities.  Here are some:

a golden dress shed at the end of the party

the gold sewed into the hemlines of refugees

all the pages I meant to write 

all the wisdom I once transcribed

the bills that have come due, the limbs

that know their limits.

At some point this week, I'll return to these lines.  But today I have some seminary writing to finish up.  I read my sermon that I'll deliver tonight, read it out loud to be sure I'm in the time requirement, and hurrah!  I am.  I'm pleased with it.  

I had looked forward to the drive, thinking I would be seeing lots of beautiful leaves and mountain vistas, and in some ways, I did.  But I couldn't look away from the road for long.  That's OK though.  I had enough glimpses to inspire my art in more ways than one: