Yesterday Roger and I did something so insanely spontaneous I'm surprised it wasn't covered by the 6:00 news. Living in Las Vegas as we do, your mind is no doubt racing with the possibilities of what that might be. Well hold onto your seat, dear reader, because this is sure not to disappoint! We took a road trip. A road trip! To a place where you don't have to dust for fingerprints to see if autumn has been sneaking around, a place where the beauty of the season fairly revels in its glory. See?? Crazy hijinks, like I said! In my book this is the equivalent of swinging from chandeliers.
At any rate, I cannot tell you how happy I felt to be in these mountains, to breathe this air, to see these colors, to feel the slanting light, to experience a moment of stillness. It reminded me of a poem I read in a college lit class (probably freshman) and adore to this day. It's by this guy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and although woefully lacking in highwaymen who wear bunches of lace at their throats, you can't deny it's otherwise a pretty decent jingle.
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spáre, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frecklèd (who knows how?)
With swíft, slów; sweet, sóur; adázzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is pást change:
What a lovely thought, pied beauty.