Up in Ontario

Autumn Leaves

This past Sunday, morning broke clear and crisp over the city, the sky above a radiant blue. A day full of possibilities existed right at our fingertips. After days of rain, the sky cracked open and reminded me of a deep breath taken after a long period of concentration. The weight of the rain disappeared.

Autumn had turned the leaves to varied shades of yellows, bronzes, oranges, reds. Leaves crumpled underfoot on sidewalks, pathways, streetcorners. Leaves collect in the corners of fences and under parked cars, the sweet smell of decay cutting through the cool air. Condensation had collected on cars overnight to cloud their windshields. Runners puffed out plumes of mist.

Fog began to collect above the water of English Bay and creeped inland. Eventually the isthmus of downtown was blanketed from False Creek to Burrard Inlet. Only the tallest buildings remained visible. The great green swatch of Stanley Park peeked through the grey.

The Duck and I walked out along Spanish Banks in bright sunshine. We looked back towards the darkness of the city where the fog collected in piled layers of whites and greys like wool, stacked and readied for milling. Sailboats emerged and swung around to regain their foothold in the wind and disappeared again. Freighters at anchor loomed in the thick air, their rusting red hulls fading to vagues outlines and then disappearing entirely.

We walked over a footbridge where salmon had been spawned by Natural Resources officers in the hope they would make the stream their own and begin the annual cycle of return, mating and death that is their compunction in life. A group of eider ducks dove for baitfish in the shallows and overhead a long V of geese winged their way south. The world was right there around us in its vibrancy and urgency and I wondered about autumn, and whether it was a time of renewal or a time of decay.