It looked as though the leaves of the autumn forest had taken flight, and were pouring down the valley like a waterfall, like a tidal wave, all the leaves of the hardwoods from here to Hudson’s Bay. It was as if the season’s colors were draining away like lifeblood, as if the year were molting and shedding. The year was rolling down, and a vital curve had been reached, the tilt that gives way to headlong rush. And when the monarch butterflies had passed and were gone, the skies were vacant, the air poised. The dark night into which the year was plunging was not a sleep but an awakening, a new and necessary austerity, the sparer climate for which I longed. The shed trees were brittle and still, the creek light and cold, and my spirit holding its breath. Annie Dillard
About This Quote

The poem titled “Autumn Leaves� by William Carlos Williams captures the perfect metaphor of the Christmas season. The poet describes how everything is falling away, losing its strength and color, and eventually dying. The leaves are falling, but they are not dead. They are like the trees that are shedding their leaves, losing their purpose and their beauty.

Even though it can be depressing to think about losing something that is so beautiful, the poet has realized that it is all part of nature’s process. It is all part of what makes us alive.

Source: Pilgrim At Tinker Creek

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  1. How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

  2. Spend the afternoon, you can't take it with you.

  3. You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.

  4. Could two live that way? Could two live under the wild rose, and explore by the pond, so that the smooth mind of each is as everywhere present to the other, and as received and as unchallenged, as falling snow?

  5. Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?

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