We went for a drive along State Route 68, south of Xenia, Ohio in search of a farm market where we could buy butternut squash and apples. We eventually found the market with its weathered barn and shelves brimming with produce and homemade jams and jellies.
Colorful as the inside of the market was, it was nothing in comparison to what we saw along the way. Within the glory of the season, a realization came that there is not enough emotion in the English language. Sometimes descriptive words are just dry and lifeless compared to the beauty in nature.
Intense red and orange-gold do not fully describe trees filling out the landscape. Nor does the word butterscotch hold the nuances of those maples towering above everything. Red, gold, orange can be replaced with crimson, ruby, scarlet or flaxen, honey, blond or salmon, ocher or carrot and yet there is not the full feeling of seeing those colors on horizons or fence rows or hilly ridges.
Seeing isn’t even enough of a word to describe what happens when one absorbs the multitude of shades and deepness of colors on an autumn drive.
As shafts of sunlight stroke colors hanging against a blue sky, they take on a completely different dimension which seduces the heart. It is difficult, if not impossible to think of troubles or schedules. The colors are in themselves the day’s activity.
Sometimes words just aren’t enough.
