Autumn is a bittersweet time of year, a transition between the expansive languid summer and the prolonged frigid winter. Autumn normally is characterized by warm days and crisp nights, but this year the season has been cold and rainy. Whatever the weather, though, I try to make the most of this season, and I start as soon as I notice it’s subtle arrival. Sometime in mid- to late-August, autumn whispers in almost without anyone noticing. It sticks around a little while, but never long enough, and then some chilly day a strong wind sweeps through and swipes away the colored leaves, ushering in a frost that can be as short-lived as a long night, or as enduring as heartache.

This weekend, as I poked around on The River’s rocks and shuffled through parchment leaves along the trail, I found myself coming back over and again to shoot photos of reflections. And as I composed shots and selected shutter speeds and apertures, I thought how our lives are like the reflections. Sometimes everything is crystal clear, sharply outlined, and full of color. Other times, the vision is hazy, blurred, or murky. Our lives are like seasons, too. Life happens almost without your knowing it, then on a day made frigid by fate, it passes. But other lives continue to flow, like the hours and days and seasons.

Winter is coming. All the wild animals know it and are busier than ever fattening up to endure its ravages. And for a time winter will spread its cold blanket across the land, but spring will arrive once more, and with it with come new growth. But that’s sometime in the future. Now it’s autumn. The leaves have changed color, and more than half of them still hang tight to their parent trees. Tomorrow is a different story. Tomorrow they might let go or be wrenched away, exposing the skeletal trunks and limbs that will clatter like bones with each icy winter blow. So let’s grab all that we can of the beauty while we have it, because you can never be sure how long it will last, and nothing lasts forever.

 
Down by the water the wind is blowing, but the hillside blunts its force. Low sun, canopies lush with golden leaves, these shoreline maples paint a brilliant picture on The River’s swift flow:

 

 
In twos and threes, the leaves let go and drift to the water below, joining the leaves of other kinds of trees. And the water reflects the overhanging limbs of a beech:

 

 
For a time, the leaves float, drifting around pools on currents, or blown like small boats in the wind. The days pass, the leaves lose their bright colors, become waterlogged and sink, where they give up their nutrients for new life to form:

 

 
Witnessing the annual riot of color is the bedrock. Ancient, born of fire, twisted by titanic forces, sculpted by ice, and polished by water. The rock has endured for over 4 billion years, and no doubt will endure for a spell yet:

 

 
The River’s mirror reflects, as it has since the last lobe of glacial ice chilled its flow some 12,000 years ago:

 

 
The dark brown Adirondack water casts shadows on the smooth gneiss, while also reflecting the brilliant light of the morning sun:

 

 
Brown the water may be, but here it’s painted by the orange and red hillside, and the deep blue sky:

 

 
The Season of Long Shadows is fast approaching, but there’s still warmth in the sun, and it spills its warmth over the pools alongside The River:

 

 
Who would tire of feasting their eyes on such visions as these?

 

 

 

 
But the still pools aren’t the only mirrors along The River. Churned by unsettled currents, this pool above a falls glistens golden green before committing to the turbulence below:

 

 
The small streams mirror the sky but will soon be carpeted with fallen leaves:

 

 
Deeper in the woods, far enough away that The River’s roar is muffled, this stream cleaves its way through the maple wood:

 

 
A pool of sun warms a fallen birch tree, encouraging this ladybug to sally forth in search of… what?

 

 
All the flowers have gone now. Or have they? These asters hold fast against a backdrop of gold maple leaves:

 

 
The wind scours the trail as I leave The River behind and head home, sending colored leaves through the air in a chaotic rush for the ground, where they whirl in a frenzy before coming to a sudden stop in the tangle of saplings and weeds. This lone milkweed pod has burst open, and the wind pulls at the seeds, but has yet to dislodge them:

 

 
The milkweed seeds can’t hang on for long. Sooner, rather than later, they will be blown free of their moorings, and will fly in all directions before settling down near and far. Next spring, some of them will germinate, and in a year’s time, they, too, will have fulfilled nature’s plan for them to lay the groundwork for new life.

 
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