The Dead

They (and who are they, I wonder?) say that April showers bring May flowers, and though the sentiment might have some validity in other parts of the country, it does not possess much of that here in the Midwest. Having lived for the past thirty-four years in this area, I recognize that what I’ve learned is that the showers of April consist mostly of snow and the wisest flowers wait until well into June to poke their lovely heads above ground. In April I remain frustratingly indoors looking out of the window and watch the white flakes cover yet again and coat the still frozen ground. To the hopeful adage above, at this time of year I think rather of T.S. Eliot’s thought, “April is the cruelest month.” Alas, here even May teases Spring and does not deliver. But now it is October and almost Halloween; the rain had been falling rather steadily for almost two weeks and today the temperature remains for now below freezing. The leaves on the trees, weakened I suppose by the atmospheric change in climate conditions that define Fall and portend Winter, have succumbed to the rain and fallen to the ground. These autumn leaves are usually described as “dying leaves,” and the blanket they provide for the balding earth as the cold rushed in are said to serve the unprotected earth. Well, I have my doubts.
            Henry David Thoreau, in his essay. “Autumnal Hints” celebrates the colors of Fall and rather than see the fallen leaves as dying refers to the changed colors as evidence of their ripening, akin to the ripening of fruit. The leaves have reached their maturity and reveal in that maturement the sum of their beauty. The essay is a paean to death, perhaps to Thoreau’s own looming demise—he suffered from consumption and died at the age of forty-four—but rather than focus on their end, Thoreau suggests that the leaves in their colorful celebration “teach us how to die.” That is, the ripening leaves will go out in blazes of color that defy their impending demise. Dying is the process of blossoming, of coming to maturity, and though traditionally characterized as pale and wan, for Thoreau death begins as a beautiful and colorful culmination. Dylan Thomas may have urged his father not to go gently into that good night, but though it may be good, death is yet dark. Thoreau suggests a different approach to mortality in “Autumnal Hints.”
            Thoreau notwithstanding, I dread the coming of winter. On my walk this morning, as the temperature hovered below 30 degrees, huddled in my winter parka, beanie cap and gloves, I where the falling leaves had left the branches bare like skeleton bones. Atop the waters that the rains had dumped on the unturned ground a very thin sheen of ice had appeared and where families of ducks had swum happily during the summer, I saw only one lone duck looking a bit lost and even lonely swimming amidst the ice water. I suppose soon he too would be gone to some place. Outside my office window the leaves fall off the trees like the drops of rain fell on the leaves.
            I weary already of the cold and the soon to be winter. Though I know that though everything appears dead, in fact the trees and creatures (except perhaps the squirrels and the mice that seek the warmth of my home) are hibernating until the weather becomes available to their awakening. Until then, however, the earth seems to me bare and colorless. I think of the final lines of James Joyce’s short story, “The Dead.” Joyce writes, “It had begun to snow again . . . The time had come for [Gabriel] to set out on his journey westward . . . the snow was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones. On the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.” There seems no hope for Spring in these final words. I pull out my wool sweaters, lined jeans and flannel shirts. I’ve never been overly fond of outdoor winter sports and I never could make a good snowball. As the winter snows begin to fall this late October Fall, I settle in for the long haul.