Colors All Around

America the Beautiful
Words by Katharine lee Bates...Music by Samuel Ward

O beautiful for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain, 
For purple mountain majesties 
Above the fruited plain! 
America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee 
And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining sea! 

I've been enjoying all of the fall beauty, from coast to coast, in our wonderful America... through the pictures on friend's blogs.People often think that they should travel to Europe and far away places to see beauty. You know, the grass is always greener? Beauty is where you find it...often right under your nose. I remember a post that I wrote about going for a drive to find fall color. We looked in several towns and the color was there, but not as strikingly beautiful as past years. Then, weary from driving...coming home to our little neighborhood...there it was, all around us, that beautiful color we had been searching for. Every state in our beautiful country has it's own beauty. Beautiful forests, lakes, rivers, ponds, trees, gardens, don't those words just  tell the story? They are beautiful words describing nature. From the tiniest sprout of a tree to the majestic Oak...we can enjoy them all here at home. Some may wish that they lived in another state, but forget what they  have out their own front door. So, before fall "gets away" take a walk or a drive and really look at the colors. The bright reds and yellows are disappearing from our area, but there are still the raw siennas and the burnt umber and the burnt siennas and lastly the yellow ochres. My art teacher sent us out on a walk through a park and told us to see color. It taught me something...there are colors everywhere...we just need to pay attention. I hope that whereever you live...you really take a close look at what we have here in our country...beauty is everywhere.

Balisha