This autumn,
How old I am getting:
Ah, the clouds, the birds!
Bashō
This verse that succinctly expresses my own feelings of the season, I found on the blog First Known When Lost, a place where I am always confident of finding beauty and serenity. In the post I link to, “Awake,” the blogger offers a well chosen smattering of haiku by Matsuo Bashō, including a good representation of autumn poetry, and commentary by by R. H. Blyth. Read the whole post to learn how Bashō can wake us up.
LINGERING IN HAPPINESS
After rain after many days without rain,
It stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees,
and the dampness there, married now to gravity,
falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground
where it will disappear — but not, of course, vanish
except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share,
and the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss;
a few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole’s tunnel;
and soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years,
will feel themselves being touched.
–Mary Oliver
A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER
Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And having done that, Thou hast done;
I fear no more.
-John Donne
“First, I took a running leap,
and then, half buried in the heap
that we’d raked up, I lingered, caught
in a cocoon of leaves and thought.”
That is the first stanza of a new poem by Jean L. Kreiling, which I just read on the website of the Plough Publishing Company. The title is “After Helping my Father Rake the Leaves,” and it is rich with images of the season, “hot colors from a chilling world,” and memories of the poet’s father, who “turned his face into the wind” — a metaphor for his inspiring life and attitude.
You can read the whole loving poem on the Plough site.
