She stoops to conker!-Mags displays horse
chestnut harvest!
A PERFECT AUTUMN DAY
This is a beautiful autumn day, sun shining, with a light breeze animating the russet-leafed trees into life. In this setting you can relate to the Prophets contention, that the trees of the field are truly clapping their hands ! (Isaiah 55:12) Today the tree-led applause is deafening, a last hurrah from leaf and flower before the terrible ravages of winter bring the house to an eerie silence. Now though ,as Mags and I leaf-kick our way around the North Circular road, there is a mellow jaunty lilt to this golden harvest Saturday. At our feet the conkers strewn from the majestic branches of the horse chestnut, a tree that in my childhood was a popular collection point for homeward-going schoolchildren when conkers was a national pastime. The dark brown ’nut’ was pierced with a nail and then treaded through with twine knotted at one end . Then the battle commenced ! You found a competitor and attempted to smash his held conker by aiming a fearsome blow at it ,hoping it would smash to pieces! In turn he would attempt to demolish yours, it sounds violent but the only suffering involved was if your pals aim was off and your fingers took the glancing blow of the conker! Ouch…I can still feel the sting of it!
Today we crouch down collecting the chestnut fruit for a very different reason, not for destructive games but for growth and life! Mags intends planting them around the farm at Ballymartin and hopes to live to see them produce after their kind! So the continuance of this day is assured even beyond our memory of it, encased in the living monuments of offspring saplings that will one day spread their leaves in autumnal applause and shower the earth with their own bounty of conkers. Who knows who will kick their way through those fallen leaves, those of a generation probably not yet even born ! Ah ,these are the thoughts of Autumn…thoughts of decaying and rebirth…thoughts of continuation and resurrection ! A good day for the human soul, a good time to remember that ancient promise of our Creator "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."(Genesis8:22) Long may we live to drink in the beauty that He has surrounded us with,and may we remember that this visible feast is only a shadow of the glories that are as of yet unseen. Someone once said “All that I have seen has taught me to trust the Creator for all that I have not seen” Quite a good rule,I think for two pilgrims ambling through the leafy carpet of a perfect autumn day.
Today we crouch down collecting the chestnut fruit for a very different reason, not for destructive games but for growth and life! Mags intends planting them around the farm at Ballymartin and hopes to live to see them produce after their kind! So the continuance of this day is assured even beyond our memory of it, encased in the living monuments of offspring saplings that will one day spread their leaves in autumnal applause and shower the earth with their own bounty of conkers. Who knows who will kick their way through those fallen leaves, those of a generation probably not yet even born ! Ah ,these are the thoughts of Autumn…thoughts of decaying and rebirth…thoughts of continuation and resurrection ! A good day for the human soul, a good time to remember that ancient promise of our Creator "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."(Genesis8:22) Long may we live to drink in the beauty that He has surrounded us with,and may we remember that this visible feast is only a shadow of the glories that are as of yet unseen. Someone once said “All that I have seen has taught me to trust the Creator for all that I have not seen” Quite a good rule,I think for two pilgrims ambling through the leafy carpet of a perfect autumn day.
Gerard O'Shea
6 comments:
I love days like this. In Minnesota the season reflects just what you are talking about. The leaves are turning , and the air cooling. I love this time of year.
I believe you refer to this season appropriately enough as Fall.
What a beautiful day you had with leafy dreams all around and summertime taking root in Mags hands even before the chestnut hits the ground.
What ?
Hey where duu get them conkers, are they African or European?
Gravity gets us all!!!
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