One last fling for a sunflower
Colored leaves drifting from maples, oaks, and sycamores may evoke the coming of autumn, but flowers also have an end; falling petals and withering leaves betoken changes to come.
Given the amount of spider silk wrapped around this sunflower (Helianthus annuus), I assumed its apparently airborne rays still were attached to the plant. They may have been dragging a bit of silk behind them, but when I discovered them missing in the following frames, I realized the truth. However inadvertently, I’d captured a perfect illustration for Emily Dickinson’s gentle farewell to the season: a sunflower’s beautiful ‘light escape.’
As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away —
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy —
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon —
The Dusk drew earlier in —
The Morning foreign shone —
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that would be gone —
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.