These Things: Fall Again and Again the Air Feels Lovely Here

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

-  Aldous Huxley

What is it of the air in autumn that reminds me of who I am? Is it the evolution from the adolescent mad drive of the physical psychology of summer to the inward calm of knowing myself again as the electricity in the air concentrates? Is it the solitude I feel from the trees as they store their sap somewhere deep within? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Fall is here and a favorite fall poem of mine by Russell Edson:

The Fall

There was a man who found two leaves and came indoors holding them out saying to his parents that he was a tree.

To which they said then go into the yard and do not grow in the living-room as your roots may ruin the carpet.

He said I was fooling I am not a tree and he dropped his leaves.

But his parents said look it is fall.

These things too inspired me recently:

• “Night Sky With Exit Wounds” is the first book of poems that has stopped me in awhile–deeply human. Jennifer got this for me just because she found his poems beautiful. They are.

• Ocean Vuong just won a MacAurthur Foundation grant for his novel “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.”

• “Free Fall” is a short film that, for our purposes here on this blog is a bad pun that mixes autumn and ocean. But the film is more than briefly gorgeous of a free diver riding underwater ocean currents. Also because E loves this film and it’s his birthday.

• “Fall Campfire” is a 26-second short film that will make you smile. Unless you’re not into animated campfires.

Enjoy the fall. The air feels lovely here.