Spring twilights can be harsh, but they are also optimistic.
‘See how I’m growing,’ proudly murmurs the voice of nature's child.
Summer twilights, when properly arrayed, wear the gown of
the Latin senorita. Being sultry, seductive and possessive, it’s sometimes hard
to pull away from her warm embrace and face the emotionally cold light of
halogen until bedtime.
Autumn twilights are the ones with two faces. While the land
around is daubed with colour, the day is shrinking and a creeping chill is
beginning to suffuse the evening air. Autumn encapsulates those lines from Macbeth:
Away and mock the time
with fairest show
False face must hide
what the false heart doth know
I have nothing against autumn. It is, after all, only doing
its job as all the seasons do. I wish I could love it as most people seem to
love it passionately, and I did when I was a boy. My birthday was in autumn and
Christmas only a little way beyond.
But when you’re a child the progress of the seasons is a
wheel endlessly turning on the road to a seemingly endless future. That’s the
difference and the clue to autumn’s metaphor.
No comments:
Post a Comment