My backfield takes on a yellow hue when the Goldenrod comes into bloom, and having learned to blame the correct pollen – ragweed – for my hay fever, I am unreserved in my welcome of it. Many others are unreserved as well. The yellow that catches my eye catches the attention of many species, and while I do the Goldenrod the good of simply leaving it alone, others do it the good of flying in for a meal and flying out with pollen they’ll spread to other Goldenrod plants.
On a sunny September day, Painted Lady Butterflies, bees, and wasps showed up to feast on the golden plumes.
They have shifted into travelers; their calls have become what they become each fall for those they leave behind – the final, genuine, farewell to late summer, the earliest of the signs that will, in sum, lead us to what we will slowly, slowly come to accept: fall is taking its place in the rotation of seasons; winter will follow.
At a local fund-raising event this summer, people lined up with their dogs in the parking lot outside the sports arena for a communal walk. Inside the arena, local craft folks and fund-raising tables were set up. From one long table of plants I selected three dahlia tubers from their cardboard box. They were, as is the way of dahlias, contorted beings that held no outwardly sign of what will come. Planted, the dahlias grew to over five feet in height. There, they unfurled blossom upon blossom. I will return their gift and dig them up to shelter them for another season.
Eudora Watson 