Ah, autumn… What a wonderful season.

The sweetness of autumn lies in the great brevity of this season. For weeks after the autumnal equinox, the days roll on in summer-like splendor. Then for a few brief weeks (or days) the trees turn, and paint the world with the vibrant colors of autumn foliage. And then the sun slips into Scorpio and everything changes – the winds howl, the leaves fly, and stark trees stand like dark skeletons under low skies.

Summer and winter are something – the twin poles of life and death, splendor and scarcity, light and dark. Spring grows into something – namely summer – and the line when spring moves into summer is so fine, in can scarcely be drawn or discerned.

But autumn dissolves into something. It holds up its head till it is overwhelmed, and then sinks into something. It is like a river bank, undermined by the swift current, that seems whole one second and then suddenly collapses as the current undermines it.

Well, like I always say – it’s easy to see when things are starting, but so hard to tell when they end.

So here are some autumn foliage photos. Tonight as I write this snow spits in the sky, a wind howls in from the west, and leaves just now starting to turn rip off the trees and fly carelessly away.

These shots are from last week, and from the Allegan Forest. The area has been subject to a couple days of sustained 40 mph winds as a cold front rolls on through. I suspect that when next I return to Allegan, the trees will be bare.

No matter – my last trip to the forest resulted in 10 rolls of 120 film shot – enough to keep the scanner busy for a while. Shot on Friday – I’ll pick it up from the lab tomorrow. Firearm deer hunting season starts in a few days – plenty of reason for me to keep out of the forest for a while.

So one more autumn blast is in store – a blast of photos that is – and that should be it for while.