The Northern Lights over Cherokee Marsh are beautiful. I walk the paths, stumbling in the dark, looking up; always looking up to see that indescribable cosmic majesty.

As I walk in the fog across Cherokee Marsh, I can’t help thinking about time and changing seasons and the mysteriousness of life and, ultimately, death.

She was an acorn once. She’s an oak now. An oak, and maybe a branch, too, of a mighty oak: our family.

Cherokee Marsh is not yet a dazzle of blossoms, but it is on its way. Bellworts are ringing their yellow bells. Mayapples hide their blossoms beneath green umbrellas. Shooting stars glitter in the thickets. Daisies dance. These are wild geranium days.

Sometimes I can be done with work early enough to glimpse the last gleams of daybreak at the marsh. Glorious days, those.

The marsh in rainy weather has a different feel. The soft susurrus of the rain over trees and fields, ponds and riverbanks, pulls me in.

The holidays are upon us and the marsh is quieted by the soft wind and softer snow flurries.

For more than 12,000 years, people have lived and died here.

Autumn comes, as it does, with crispness in the air, color in the leaves, and introspection in the mind.