Shining Light on the Prairie - Autumn, later

 

Considerably later, as it turns out.

With spates of unseasonable warmth and adequate moisture well into November, early autumn richness proved resilient.

What might’ve been cold hard work searching brown barrens for splashes of living color, wasn’t that.

As ever, the season’s luxurious long light bore sublime gifts.

It was such a lengthy autumn that even fungi finally cooperated, in the end being fresh out of excuses.

Inevitably, the real world did turn. That’s about as dependable a thing as we have.

Some folk equate autumn with dying. But on prairie sprinkled with oak savanna, even the most pallid light reveals a promise of renewal.

Next stop, winter solstice. After which daylight creeps steadily back into winter's world and old promise is given new life come spring.

Depend on it.