PIECES OF AUTUMN
Truth to tell, fall is not my favorite season. In fact, I don't really like it. There is something sad about the stillness, something that I think of as ( Windslow ) Homeresque. I cannot, though, deny it's beauty. Today, I think is the peak of the peak, golden colors everywhere and a bright, windless sky. The leaves will hang on until there is a bit of wind or they will just give up and fall to the ground as some have done. Tomorrow or the day after the cottonwood will again be those forlorn shaggy trees that they are destined to be for the next 8 years but for now, for today anyway, they did basque in golden glory.
PS Beloveds in city canyons and steaming in Singapore, these pictures are especially for you.
1 Comments:
Beautiful, really.
I have a memory of you telling me you love Autumn light -- the golden slant upon a brick building. I now, when I see such light, whether it is autumn or not, I think of you!
After my wrist surgery, I came to reciting the opening lines of Keats's "Ode to Autumn" -- Here's the poem for you:
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease; 10
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day 25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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