Searching for Autumn

Much inspired by some of the lovely autumnal shots I saw on several blogs last year, I decided to try and capture some autumn colours of my own. Only I forgot one small detail. We tend not to have much of an Autumn. We seem instead to go from summer to winter with nothing more than a vague murmur inbetween. So many of the trees seem to keep their green foliage until the first big blow of winter, at which point, giving themselves a good shake they shed their clothes and stand in glorious nakedness for winter. But that waywardness didn't stop me from trying to capture a glimpse of Autumn anyway. A trip to the arboretum and vineyards just up the road produced the the images below. Some are experimental, with me trying to capture good bokeh on some of the shots.


And since I'm not feeling overly creative in the words department right now - yes, I know, a terribly sin for a writer to admit, but there you go, it happens, I thought I'd share this with you - while you're enjoying Spring!

ODE TO AUTUMN
by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.