{"id":4488,"date":"2013-11-14T22:38:19","date_gmt":"2013-11-15T03:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unhewnstones.com\/?p=15"},"modified":"2013-11-14T22:38:19","modified_gmt":"2013-11-15T03:38:19","slug":"the-river-slips-softly-into-the-dusk-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/2013\/11\/14\/the-river-slips-softly-into-the-dusk-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"The river slips softly \/ into the dusk of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><a href=\"\/dw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IMG_0091.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/dw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IMG_0091-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"The Eno River at dusk in autumn\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-20\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Looking eastward down the Eno River, somewhere along Holden Mill Trail, about four-thirty in the afternoon in early November.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>On certain autumn afternoons there is a brief passage &#8212; if you are lucky you may get ten minutes to appreciate it &#8212; when the sun has drifted low and the afternoon breeze has calmed and the light reflects off the surface of the river as from a mirror, doubling the trees and the intensity of their lingering color, and the earth gives the illusion of brightness. The season and the hour have so muted the wood&#8217;s palette that the russet of late-hanging leaves calls louder than crimson in June. The sudden splash of gold away downstream beckons like summer&#8217;s lost oasis. But the bare arms of sycamore and ironwood make a stark fence against it, and it recedes from my approach &#8212; the light, the afternoon, the year. The vestigial warmth of summer dissipates like a mist; winter seeps from the earth and fills its absence. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>A heron perched on the broad limb of a birch snag fluffs against the rising chill and eyes the river dourly. He does not share whatever pleasure I glean from the dusk of a day and a season. It is a luxury to appreciate such sad beauty, the privilege of one heading home to a warm house and a hot supper. Cold fish and a drafty tree make less comfortable lodgings for aesthetic contemplation &#8212; or a convenience-store hot dog and a sleeping bag on a concrete sidewalk. Mine is the pleasure of extolling the benefits to mankind of our mortality without serious fear of meeting it any time soon. The river runs on, but I&#8217;m gone before twilight, home to upload my photographs and make a pretty frame for winter in words. It&#8217;s what we have while we&#8217;re here, and the gift is that we can make a gift of it.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looking eastward down the Eno River, somewhere along Holden Mill Trail, about four-thirty in the afternoon in early November. On certain autumn afternoons there is a brief passage &#8212; if you are lucky you may get ten minutes to appreciate it &#8212; when the sun has drifted low and the afternoon breeze has calmed and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[17],"tags":[133,178,212,247,316,382],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8I1ci-1ao","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.davidwalbert.com\/dw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}