Have legs, will amble

It’s that time again, for branches to emerge as spindly remembrances of their former, leafy selves.

No doubt some of the former fall foliage was blown away by the storms of the past fortnight…

This, taken just days after Sandy blew through town. Awe, again.

So much we have to trust, simply to live through our daily day
without sinking through the earth!
Trust the snow clinging to the mountain slope over the village.
Trust the promises of silence and smiles of understanding,
trust that the accident telegram isn’t for us and that the sudden
axe-blow from within won’t come.
Trust the wheel-axles that carry us on the highway in the middle
of the three-hundred-times magnified bee swarm of steel.
But none of that is really worth our confidence.
The five strings say we can trust something else.
Trust what? Something else, and they follow us part of the way
there.
As when the lights turn off in the stair-well and the hand follows
— with confidence — the blind handrail that finds its way in
the dark.

Another bit from Tranströmer’s “Schubertiana”