Falling-leaf moon garden

Trees begin to show their bones and sinew as leaves tumble. The stark beauty of their architecture lends sculptured nobility to the coming season. As the garden continues its enfoldment into earth and compost heap, aesthetic shapes of change bring a hard, yet pleasant vision of Nature renewed. The brightened palette of leaf colors succumbs to gravity’s pull, dropping a rainbow of useful material for improving soil.

Harvesting food is near completion. Tuscan kale ripens, sweetened by cold nights. Last year’s winter lettuce survived into spring under a simple A-frame made with windows tipped together. I’ll keep Swiss chard stands going a little longer, the same way. I gather a bright assortment of striped Delicata, orange Kuri, yellow Acorn and tan Butternut squash in a wide wicker basket.

I spring rake a downpour of leaves scuttling across the drive and put them onto a new heap, near the garden. I turn books from last year’s pile into the soil of older vegetable beds. Purple-throated white streptocarpus blooms arch in a wide spray, ready to join the crowd of tropical plants adjusting to indoor life. A fat-cheeked chipmunk speeds, skittering across the porch, and chirps. A cosmos blossom buzzes with a bee as I spread a layer of woodchips at its feet. White Michaelmas daisies fan near tall spikes of purple monkshood. A cloud of mauve chrysanthemums weaves below with little mop heads. I save some flower seeds, leaving most on plants for birds to find on colder days.

I spread remains of my compost and begin a fresh heap where the two-year old pile was aging. This annual ritual slowly but steadily builds soil quality with organic material. It seems like a small thing, recycling our kitchen and yard waste. Yet, it is at the heart of green sustainability. We keep a stainless-steel bowl near the sink for scraps. There is a miraculous circle of energy that turns parings into nutrients for growth of food. I am imagining steaming, fat, heirloom runner beans in red potato soup, with chives and magenta stalks of chard.

I left the gate ajar. A black bear wandered in and chomped on an unripe butternut. She mangled a section of fence while trying to get out. The garden is forgiving of our human flubs and failures. Always in flux, our successes rise amid the vagaries of weather, and in the process, gardens become startlingly unique. They are the paradise we give ourselves to, meant to mediate for the sacred.

A vase of dried flowers and grass adorns the porch table, between slouching pumpkin-head effigies. Faces are carved and jack-o-lanterns are set alight with candles. The veil between the worlds is thinned at the end of the month with the sun low in the sky. Merrymaking by the Lord of Misrule beckons celebrants with feasting and harmless pranks. The god of summer passes over as spirits of loved ones reunite with the living. Bonfires are set to purify and contain the energy that illuminates the dark night. The flame is carried to the hearth for winter, where ritual is centered, ready to usher in light of the New Year.