Essay and photos by Joe Mish unless otherwise noted

The trim yellow canoe quietly slipped through the standing leaf littered water with each stroke of the paddle. Eventually, the leaves would accumulate on the bow to create a gurgling sound and slow forward progress. A quick backstroke and turn of the bow cleared the leaves at the expense of energy exerted and time.

Autumn had arrived and the interchangeable term, fall, took on a practical meaning as the air was aflutter with falling leaves that carpeted the water’s surface.

Leaves were not the only thing suddenly falling to earth. During an early morning paddle when all was silent and calm, a nearby, unexpected loud splash, sent shockwaves through my body. It sounded as if someone threw a rock in my direction with mal intent. In reality, it was a black walnut falling into the water. The large green billiard ball sized walnut enclosed husk is quite a formidable bludgeon, whose striking force is magnified when it hits the water.

Peak autumn color is often enhanced by a pre-dawn gold infused mist covering the river when early October teases with the cold nights and warm sunny days. Drifting quietly downstream into the mist feels as if riding the current into the primordial past when the earth was just being formed. An alarmed great blue heron completes the experience as it reflects its paradactyl ancestry in size and form.

Some of the best fall scenery is along the rivers and canals where calm water mirrors the golden foliage and extends linearly to a vanishing point or disappears beyond a curve. This draws you deeper into the scene to a place where imagination, memories and time mingle with autumnal color. A place where the traveler will lose their way and wander aimlessly without the need to reach a destination.

The rays of the midday sun are captured by the water arguing with the rocks and stones of the exposed riverbed and turned into bright sparkling diamonds; a perfect complement to the blaze of fall foliage which lines the river’s banks. The white faceted diamonds lay like a necklace against the sky-blue décolletage reflected in the smooth water above and downstream of the turbulence.

Sitting at the river’s edge watching fallen leaves float by, it is impossible to not imagine yourself aboard a curled yellow leaf traveling on the energy of the current and at the whim of an errant breeze. Through no effort of your own, you travel as an observer on a downriver cruise, unburdened by schedule or destination. It is as if you parted your conscious mind from reality, to set your imagination free. You look down to see the shadow of your leaf racing along the stony riverbed. Then spin around at the edge of an eddy and pass over a bed of long lime green grass swaying seductively in the current. Riding a smooth wave over a submerged rock, the sky appears for an instant. Pure white fluffy clouds parade against an azure, blue sky which disappears and reappears in the openings within the green and golden-brown foliage of a sycamore tree.

Each fallen leaf is a post-it-note created by autumn and distributed far and wide by the river’s current. Each colorful courier declares a friendly reminder of the inevitable change of seasons.

The autumn is truly a time of wonder, as daylight dims and shadows lengthen, while leaves magically turn brilliant colors. Like an emergency generator being triggered when the lights go out, the fall colors appear and flash a visual warning that winter’s icy emissary will arrive before the celestial clock officially declares winter’s arrival.

The seasons are tracked to the second by the predictable positions of the stars and planets. The stability of their celestial dance amid the chaos of the heavens is beyond comprehension, as the fall color is a reminder that our existence is at the mercy of the stars. A single scarlet leaf pasted to the sidewalk after a rain validates our heavenly origins.

October is the last comfort station before the final trek through the darkest days, as we stumble along to find the light switch on the first day of winter. The energy of brilliant fall color restores the spirit when the lights go out and power us through to the birth of light in December, when the shrinking light begins to grow.

Joe Mish has always lived in sight of New Jersey’s Raritan River. His early years were spent roaming clay banks, streams, tidal creeks and swamps of the Lower Raritan near Crab Island. Now living upstream on the Raritan’s South Branch, he photographs New Jersey’s natural treasures hidden in plain view, sharing them in his column “Along the South Branch” in The Branchburg News, on his own blog page, and via the Lower Raritan River Partnership’s website. Many of his photos appear in Judy Auer Shaw’s The Raritan River: Our Landscape, Our Legacy. Joe also has images published in Northeast Sporting Journal, Maine Outdoors and History of Willowood. A graduate of Rutgers Cook College, Joe is a regular on Super Aging Today radio program as a nature photojournalist. Retired from Johnson and Johnson where he worked in Clinical Research and Pharmacology, Joe paddles local rivers throughout the year to see what surprises nature has to offer when no one else is looking.