Tag Archives: autumn

Beguile us … Slow, slow!

nature, poetry, ,

OCTOBER

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

-Robert Frost

 

 

 

Threads strung across everything.

nature, quotes, , ,

“Time marched on. Each day seemed long, each week short. It was already autumn. What is the salient characteristic of autumn? The spiders’ threads in the early morning frost. I am not thinking much of the circular networks, marvellous as these are, hung along the gate, but rather the threads that are strung across everything, so that if you bend down till your eye is level with the field you can see a white veil over the whole expanse. They are everywhere, on everything. ‘Do they drape the cannons in France?’ asked Mr Ralph Wightman, true poet, in a striking image, the other day. To look down at these things is like looking up at the stars — we are baffled by quantity.”

John Stewart Collis in The Worm Forgives the Plough

(photo credit)

 

You are still summer.

calendar, poetry, summer, , ,

TO THE LIGHT OF SEPTEMBER

When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know
that you have come
the seed heads of the sage
the whispering birds
with nowhere to hide you
to keep you for later

you
who fly with them

you who are neither
before nor after
you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew

-W.S. Merwin

The Cornfield – Alfred Sisley

Blessed Monday

nature, , ,

Monday is usually for me a recuperative day when I try to stay home and catch up with myself after a lot of Sunday “output.” It didn’t happen the same way today, because I wanted to get to the post office early and mail lots of Christmas packages. It was a cold but not freezing, clear and sunny day, and once I was relieved of my burdens, I knew I would take a walk.

It’s very strange, how for more than a year I have been stubbornly averse to the long-familiar walks in my neighborhood. Is it “familiarity breeds contempt”? But as I always say, every day is different out there, and if you can’t see that, then certainly week by week you would notice, that the plants and the weather are obviously different, so that it is not the same place you are walking. I still didn’t care.

Autumn, after the rains, always tries to pull me out for an explore. But until today, I resisted. I had too much on my mind, on the calendar, and didn’t feel the freedom. It was a providential synchronicity that today, when I am transitioning into the remainder of Advent, the weather was perfect for it. As soon as I neared the creek the heady scents filled my head — of wet earth and leaves, infused with the sweetness of fennel seeds fermenting in the dampness.

We’ve had enough rain that the sheep in the pasture had plenty of bright green grass to graze on, and I think it made the fall colors extra bright. And my mood was bright. Now on to cookie baking!