Late Summer Acorns

This time of year I lie in bed and listen to acorns plop as they drop off the oak tree in front of our house. Before I go to sleep, when I wake up during the night, and when I lie in bed absorbing the sweet quiet and  goodness of morning, I hear them fall. One by one. Sometimes they bounce, and I hear a few rapid plops in a row. Sometimes they hit the metal roof of our wood shed, and the sound is sharp like a bang. But most of the acorns hit the wooden porch or steps, or the shingled house roof, and the sound is robust but dull, like a strike on a kettledrum.

Like the glorious sound of birds singing in March as they arrive from the south, the rumble of the first thunderstorm in April, the buzz of cicadas in late summer, the falling of acorns is a sound that for me marks time. Dipping a spoon to get that first delectable taste of maple syrup from the pot boiling in the shed; admiring the beauty of the first brook trout caught in the spring; picking bright red raspberries up the Mt. Chase road in August for muffins; grabbing my orange jacket and shotgun to go grouse hunting with my very excited dogs on the first day of October; filling the woodstove on a cold day in December for the first fire of the winter. There is indeed a season for everything. We eagerly await each one, even though they remind us that time seems to move far too quickly and nothing lasts forever. The raspberries will be gone, the trout will go to deep waters for the summer, the acorns will eventually stop falling . . . until next time. So we wait until next time, doing whatever keeps us busy in the moment. 

Time isn't linear; it's a revolving circle, the embodiment of perfection and eternity. We go round and round, enjoying the view and resting in eternity.