Windfalls [ Autumnal imagery/ change]

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Oily chestnuts broken out of spiked cocoons are collected by the kids. Every corner in the house will have chestnuts in them by dusk to ward off spiders.
In the backyard a heavy breath of fallen apples soaks the ground. Another storm will surely remove the rest. Another thud. Mind out! Or the big apples, the monsters on the outer branches that absorbed more sun and rain than the others. Now they are shipwrecked husks; insides scavenged by crows and blackbirds, modern 'wreckers making away with the life-giving pulp.

And in the ditches the blackberries are beaten, gales flinging them stupidly and rain delivering Autumn's coup de grace. But it's beautiful. The splash of gold in gutters, sloppy leaves sticking around. The heave of massive tree limbs straining like over-burdened weight lifters. After dark in a storm, the background noise and struggle in the oaks. Or the acorns jettisoned like useful bullets to be picked up at dawn. I cannot wait to wake tomorrow and see more change.
It's all alive beyond the windows, reminding and reminding and waiting.

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