The autumn comes, a maiden fair
In slenderness and grace…
In flowers of grasses she is clad;
And as she moves along,
Birds greet her with their cooing glad
Like bracelets’ tinkling song.
~Kalidasa, 5th century Sanskrit poet and dramatist

A “maiden fair” has autumn most certainly been, but now the gusty, cooler winds of advancing November fray her youthful garments more and more.  The season is growing long in the tooth, and the once slender, grace filled maiden has metamorphosed into a more roughly-hewn grown woman.  Deepening autumn’s brisk caresses and shivering moments continue to take their toll on the landscape, and the growing wildness in her tattered countenance is changing her refined glory into a bewitching, reckless abandon.  Until all her days are gone, however, the saving grace of her now tattered remnants will be the native and ornamental grasses that shift and sigh giving her a new song and her aging visage a pretty, ethereal appearance.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.  ~Isaiah 40:8  ✝