Fall, Falling, Fallen

• Darkness falls—and then there are candles in red glass cups, fires of piñon wood, carols.
• Cakes fall—and I remember in the lovely treehouse where I lived on Forest Avenue (the upstairs sun porch of a ramshackle Victorian) my cakes didn’t fall but were slanted—one inch deep at one end and approaching three at the other, thanks to the insouciant tilt of the kitchen.
• Stars fall—and we make wishes on them, which sometimes come true.
• Waterfalls—I photograph with my close-up lens, drop by drop and mosses on their brink, because I can’t take in the whole energy force at once, or do justice to it.
• Runners fall, sometimes, tripping over their own shoelaces, or a tangled root—but before doing so, sweep up a cloud of sandpipers or gulls ahead of them on the pale early-morning beach.
• A fall from grace—
• Freefall—
• Footfall—
• Snowfall—
• Falling on deaf ears, or on cedar.
• The fall of Icarus or Lucifer, the Fall of the House of Usher, the fallen women—cautionary tales, that make it seem a failing to fall, which it by no means is, always.

Fall 2014—and I can’t help wondering what will befall us.

image: Efteraar (Autumn) 1909 by Jens Lund