Old gold song of the almost finished year

May Sarton's autumn & reading recommendations for the waning days of October

From left: Painting by Czene Béla, Autumn by Joan Mitchell, Katrien De Blauwer collage, Georgia O'Keeffe photographed by John Candelario at Ghost Ranch, 1939, Léon Spilliaert, Maison au crépuscule, 1921

The other morning I stood by the window and watched as the wind stripped the leaves from the oak tree. They weren’t falling, I thought, and no two leaves departed in the same manner. Some spun downward in a pirouette—with the grace of a ballerina or figure skater—and others rode on the wind as though they were caught in a wave at sea. Surfers and ghosts. Some hurried, others