2004-10-25 - 9:06 a.m.
there's a certain slant of light...
have you noticed that these days are made for the setting sun? in autumn, it is always the end of the day that is the most beautiful. i've been noticing because i've been trying to take advantage of the fading light, trying to soak up every possible moment of color before the inevitable greyness descends upon us. the light of the five o'clock october sun touches the trees exactly where they are the most beautiful, the most heart-breaking and it floods the world with the colours of a medieval icon. i wonder about the connection between beauty and dying. not death, which is almost always ugly, but dying - the moments, the hours, the days before death - nature's "rage against the dying of the light."
i've come here today as a scavanger. to find something beautiful to bring home with me. most of the leaves here turn brown and faded, so to find the fiery shreds of blood and gold, one must go looking. but i have found a spot and am pleased at my exploits. i feel a little guilty robbing this carpet of its colour, but i'm sure that the generous donors will not mind the loss. and sometime, in the middle of winter perhaps, i will open joseph conrad or sartre, and find this day pressed between its pages and i'll smile.
