Ghosts of Color

Last weekend I flew to New Hampshire. It was the apex of autumn. Villages of white clapboard stood watch over slate cemetaries, pumpkin patches and wreaths of corn.

The pretense of my trip was the wedding of a lifelong friend, Charlotte, to her beau and (now husband) Dwayne. The wedding was moving and relaxed, punctuated with excellent food, the brilliance of a hardwood deciduous forest aflame with color, and two families uniting through their children. Wonderful.

Icing on the cake, was wandering with lifelong friend, Joy, into the trails of the White Mountains, the farmstands of Hollis. The beauty and happiness that is New Hampshire washed over me like a memory.

On Columbus Day, I set off alone to haunt the places where I had once laughed, and loved. I set off down remote trails, photographing the trees, streams, and lakes south of the Franconia Notch. My subconscious percolated the past into the present, using the timeless consistency of the autumn woods as a bridge.

Here, once upon a time, I had been fully present. I loved life deeply . . . forgot that I was vulnerable . . . and then suddenly was vulnerable. I had wanted to reclaim the colors, the granite, the trails, the mountains. I had wanted their sensation to belong to me in a new context. However, everywhere that I went the past presented itself.

I realized that in everything, every day, one must choose to live fully present and completely vulnerable, regardless of the consequences. The option is to spend your life sheltering yourself, mitigating risk and pursuing control. This option might be safer, but the memories would be of fears and strategies, instead of experiences and offerings. In any case, it was too late for me. New Hampshire is a place I poured myself out, and there I was on fire in the trees.

The Fallen

by William Drew Weinbrenner

In careful folds

on rounded mounds

stand forest clouds

of ruby red.

Through and under

circling ceilings,

brittle brown

and dead.

Shuffled feet

crush and crunch.

The puzzle plowed

to mossy bed.

We're m i l e s a p a r t.

Our hearts resound.

But not a word

was really said.

Beauty pulls

a vacancy,

wrapped in wool,

a single thread.

Three years distance

I put between

unravels

in my head.