The Weight of Harvest

The smell of damp earth clings to my skin long after the rain has stopped. It is a heavy, sweet scent—the smell of things settling into the soil, preparing for the long sleep of winter. I remember the rough, waxy skin of a gourd under my palms, the way the surface felt cool and stubborn, holding the heat of the sun deep within its rind. There is a specific kind of silence that comes with the harvest, a quiet that tastes like dried leaves and woodsmoke. We spend our lives gathering, filling our arms with things that will eventually wither, yet we find comfort in the sheer density of the season. It is a grounding, a tethering of the spirit to the ground beneath our feet. When did we stop feeling the texture of the world and start only looking at it? Does the earth remember the hands that once held its fruit, or are we just passing shadows in the orchard?

Sandra Frimpong has captured this quiet transition in her work titled The Thought of Fall. The colors feel like a memory of warmth stored against the coming cold. Does this image stir a dormant season in your own bones?