An Autumn Day

Between two weather systems, one either side of the island, so today is bright and clear, the low Sun in a blue sky with occasional scudding clouds moving steadily in the breeze and casting shadows on the land as they pass. The pale, clear light of the Sun illuminates the brittle leaves still on the trees, dry rusty-gold and faded yellow, yet they glow in the translucent air.

As often on clear days the roar of low-flying military jets suddenly fills the valley, taking advantage of the perfect weather for practice following the contours of the hills. Just as suddenly they are gone, looping back to some far distant air base, and the only sound left behind is the mewing of a pair of buzzards overhead. Are these from the huge nest I spotted at the top of one of the trees growing further down the slope but visible from the path along the ridge which is level with the treetops?

The dew pond on Bryn Hir was full of water with pondweed growing in it, as if it were always so and not just as likely to be dry as it sometimes is when I visit. The view from here displays the Eleri Valley as a long, curved sweep between hills and I can pick out places I walk to and woods I pass through above the river, and the line of the river in the narrow gorge below the wooded slopes. In the other direction a v-shaped patch of sea is visible between two rounded hills, offset from each other but appearing level in this angle of view.

It is a perfect day. I walk back down off the open hillside and into the woods again. There is a choice of paths where I often hesitate before deciding which way to take. Today I go up through a derelict gate and round the hill fort where a short-lived wooden motte and bailey castle was erected in the 12th century by an intrusive Norman lord. Now it is almost inaccessible because of the bramble and gorse that clothe the slopes. I keep to the footpath across a wet, boggy field and then take the lane down to the village.

The arils on the ancient yew in the churchyard are beginning to darken. Here under the deep green shade I look out at the sunlight on the hillside trees shining amber through the autumnal hues of the leaves. Below, the stream rushes down into a culvert and the sound of it contrasts with the stillness of the water in the well-shaft of the Holy Well where I pause and carry a blessing home.

Ebb and Flow on the Mawddach

John Ruskin said of the Mawddach Estuary that the only thing more beautiful than the trip between Dolgellau and Barmouth was the trip between Barmouth and Dolgellau. It is not just the panorama of the wooded hills above the wide river, or the distant prospect of the sea beyond the estuary, or even the sheer magnificence of the whole valley at the southern end of Snowdonia. It is contained in the experience I had today - and not for the first time - of the atmospheric intensity of the place.

We walked the path along the river , bending away from it in some stretches through woodland, and caught the first intimations of autumn in the wind's chill and the cloudy skies above the manifold greens of the woodland just taking on a hint of autumn colour. As the wind bent over the slender birches they creaked at the woodland edge as if in anticipation of a winter that cannot be far away.

On the sandbanks exposed by the low tide geese gathered in increasing numbers. Along the creeks in the salt marsh at the river's edge a heron stood staring with tilted neck at one of the rivulets running through the debatable territory between river and woodland as the tides rise and fall. This is a liminal zone in an estuary that changes rapidly. As we walked downriver the waters swirled around extensive sandbanks. But only a few hours later the tide had rushed back in , covering them and changing the view to one of a wide expanse of water. The vigour of the current visibly changed the nature of the river as we walked on and soon engulfed all of the exposed sand. The geese then assembled in large flocks on the salt marsh while the herons - and there seemed to be a different one every half mile or so - stood in the rising waters watching with intent gaze for any movement of prey beneath the flow. Occasionally one would spread wide wings and then flap slowly for a short distance before subjecting another spot to the same intent gaze.

Above the tidal ebb and flow the air currents were also engaged in constant flux. Cloud drifted over and then cleared. For a moment there was rain in the air. Then a patch of intense blue as the sky cleared. On the hillside oaks, ashes, birches hung above the valley, ancient woodlands that have turned from green to russet and shed their leaves for hundreds of years of recent time. Twice daily this estuary shifts with the tides. And its weather reflects this. Today as the last of summer shifted to autumn the edge in the wind was also the edge between seasons and this too was reflected in the shifting edge of the river : a dynamic zone in which the flow of time is caught in the act, not of slipping past unnoticed but still, for a swift perception of transitoriness, isolated in its passing.

Persephone

Περσεφόνη

The bright hue of that flower
Drained from her world as the shadow
Fell and darkness was all about her;
Not the cool shade of summer woods
Or even the blackness of the dark of the Moon
In winter - no particle of light was here
No wave of light's motion,

No flower, no fruit, but the seed
Under her tongue her only memory
As her steps through the gloom
Echo in the halls of Hades
While the empty woods dream of her return
Strewing the ground with leaves shed
For the cold comfort that winterlight brings.

A Leaf in Autumn

Y ddeilen hon, neus cynired gwynt,

Gwae hi o'i thynged!

Hi hen; eleni ganed.

(9th century?)

This leaf, sere as the wind turns it

Its fate is here, its woe:

To be born and die in a year.