Autumn Golden Hour at Wave Hill

LOST

Stand Still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

-David Wagoner

Reference: Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems, University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Needing a dose of stillness in this historically unnerving week, a visit with nature was just the thing to calm the unease. Perched high above the Hudson River in Riverdale, the Bronx, Wave Hill’s majestic 28 acres were kissed with an autumnal November glow. The Chyrsanthemums and Cosmos called out a last hurrah of color amidst blooming grasses and rusting blossoms. The sentry of trees formed the backdrop of leaves that will soon finish their symphony of color as they make their way to carpet the ground for winter. And the quiet that the garden so knowingly bestowed reminded me that Here is all we have. Wherever this finds you, Here you are.

iPhone snaps Beth Horta for Sweet Sabelle.