MINSTREL WEATHER 



since August by the katydid. The honey- 

 colored pippins, cracked and mellow in the 

 brooding heat, encounter the windfalls of 

 October's trees deepening red, soft yel- 

 low, and polished green. Great, shelter- 

 ing leaves are dropping from the burdened 

 vine. Every breath tells of fruits, drying 

 herbs, and the late flowers that in de- 

 serted gardens are most pungent in Sep- 

 tember marigolds, tansy, and the cin- 

 namon pink. Pennyroyal and mint are 

 betrayed. Thorn apples, not near ripened, 

 are knocked from the twig by south-bound 

 birds. 



Still, among wine-colored and vermilion 

 foliage, the acorn is green, though flushed 

 wintergreen berry and red-gemmed par- 

 tridge vine proclaim autumn along the 

 forest floor. The auburn splendors are 

 upon the sumac and the burning-bush of 

 old-fashioned dooryards, where, too, the 

 smoke tree holds its haze of seeds. Some- 

 times a gentian stands erect among dead 

 grasses a slim senora with a fringed man- 

 tilla swirled close about her shoulders in 

 the chilly dusk. The closed gentian keeps 

 its darkly impenetrable blue beside the 

 pink- tipped companion stalks of the 



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