High Fall

Words and photos by Greg

The sun is swinging further southward through the sky each day. Morning and evening are marching toward each other, shortening the daylight hours by minutes from one day to the next. The season is sifting downward from above. High peaks have worn -- and shrugged off -- their first winter white. The shoulder mountains are warning of the change in blazing colors of caution as leaves flash and fall, showering the trails with golden payment on the path toward winter.

It is a fleeting season, and some years, more fleeting than others. To stand in one place and watch it pass makes it seem to pass more quickly. So we keep ourselves in motion. We install ourselves in a transitory moment with the hope that our speed will somehow draw out more of what we seek: to linger in a moment while moving through it.

A paradox, of sorts. Yet in this instance it may be possible. These autumn colors, high on the mountain slopes, are spilling downward. Tumbling along creek beds and pouring toward the valleys below. Color will spill from the aspen trees, through the slopes of oak brush, downward to willows and meadows, then pour along the cottonwood edges of rivers that carve themselves into desert canyons.

It is a season in motion, from high to low. Right now we revel in the high fall of aspen trees and pointed pines. But if we're clever, we'll be able to follow the moment, follow the motion, and linger in the colors of fall as they move forward into the weeks ahead.