甜美的九月（3）（2/2）
《推开生活之门》作者：杨柳青 2017-02-07 10:36
ptember.
To warm-blooded creatures, the crisp, cool nights of September are invigorating. But cold-blooded insects are at the mercy of the sun and now their clocks run down. The cicada is stilled. The chorus of the cricket and katydid diminishes. When they rash at all it is with the deliberate tempo of a fiddler drawing a worn bow across fraying strings.
Now come the hoarding days. Mice have been harvesting and stowing seeds for weeks. The chipmunk lines his winter bedroom, and squirrel hide the nut trees, bounty. The woodchucks, gorging on grass and clover and fruit, lay up their harvest inbody fat under their own skins.
The flickers begin to gather for migration. All summer these big woodpeckers were resolutely individual, busy with f***ly life and wanting no company. Now they are gregarious, with time for tribal gossip and community play. The warblers and swallow shave already formed in premigration flocks; soon the robins will be gathering too. Nesting is completed, fledglings are on their own, and there is food in plenty. September is vacation time for birds. Who knows but that they are discussing the trip ahead?
By September’s end the treasure chest of autumn begins to spill over with wealth. You see it glowing in the quiet afternoon, aflame in the sunset. Woodland, roadside and dooryard will soon be jeweled beyond a rajah’s richest dreams.
The year’s season in the sun has run its course. Nature begins to prepare for winter. After the color in the woodlands. the leaves will blanket the soil. The litter of autumn will become much, then humus for root and tender seed. The urgency of growth is ended for another year, but life itself is hoarded in root and bulb and seed and egg.
To warm-blooded creatures, the crisp, cool nights of September are invigorating. But cold-blooded insects are at the mercy of the sun and now their clocks run down. The cicada is stilled. The chorus of the cricket and katydid diminishes. When they rash at all it is with the deliberate tempo of a fiddler drawing a worn bow across fraying strings.
Now come the hoarding days. Mice have been harvesting and stowing seeds for weeks. The chipmunk lines his winter bedroom, and squirrel hide the nut trees, bounty. The woodchucks, gorging on grass and clover and fruit, lay up their harvest inbody fat under their own skins.
The flickers begin to gather for migration. All summer these big woodpeckers were resolutely individual, busy with f***ly life and wanting no company. Now they are gregarious, with time for tribal gossip and community play. The warblers and swallow shave already formed in premigration flocks; soon the robins will be gathering too. Nesting is completed, fledglings are on their own, and there is food in plenty. September is vacation time for birds. Who knows but that they are discussing the trip ahead?
By September’s end the treasure chest of autumn begins to spill over with wealth. You see it glowing in the quiet afternoon, aflame in the sunset. Woodland, roadside and dooryard will soon be jeweled beyond a rajah’s richest dreams.
The year’s season in the sun has run its course. Nature begins to prepare for winter. After the color in the woodlands. the leaves will blanket the soil. The litter of autumn will become much, then humus for root and tender seed. The urgency of growth is ended for another year, but life itself is hoarded in root and bulb and seed and egg.