Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Let fall your shadows on the sundials, upon the fields let loose your winds.
Command the last fruits to be full; give them just two more southern days, Press them to completion, and chase the last sweetness into the heavy wine.
Who has no house now – he will never build. Whoever is alone now, long will so remain; will stay awake, and read, and write long letters and wander the alleys up and down, restless, as the leaves are drifting. ~Rainer Maria Rilke “Autumn Day”
This sadness that fall brings
is less about the ending of a long hot dry summer
and more about deepening shadows,
the fullness of harvest,
the drifting and dying to self.
I am misty in memories
of children dressed for school
eating around a full kitchen table,
of chores done hurriedly on frosty mornings,
of afternoons darkening too early
from drizzly clouds,
of nights under heavy comforters.
Lord, it is time. Too soon, too soon.
Help ready me.
That whisper takes the voice Of a Spirit, speaking to me, Close, but invisible, And throws me under a spell At the kindling vision it brings; And for a moment I rejoice, And believe in transcendent things That would make of this muddy earth A spot for the splendid birth Of everlasting lives, Whereto no night arrives; ~Thomas Hardy from “In a Whispering Gallery” in Moments of Vision
If I listen carefully enough,
forgetting myself,
if I attend to His Voice,
the still small whisper that comes
as night fades away.
Light dawns kindling
over this sad world,
muddy though it be,
yet lit from above,
rejoicing, shouting:
reborn.
~EPG
Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may seem admirable, but it is a way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples, and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.
~William Martin from The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents
Time’s fun when you’re having flies. ~Kermit the Frog
Time flies like the wind; fruit flies like a banana. ~attributed to Groucho Marx
It’s not easy being green unless you also have a dorsal brown stripe and live in a box of ripe Asian pears on the front porch that has become a metropolis of Drosophila (fruit flies). Then you are in frog heaven with breakfast, lunch and dinner within reach of your tongue any time.
And the Drosophila happily move in to the kitchen any time some pears are brought in. The apple cider vinegar killing fields I’ve set up on the kitchen counter are capturing dozens daily, but their reproducing outstrips the effectiveness of my coffee filter funnel death trap lures.
This too shall pass. Time flies and time’s fun –for frogs and flies.
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning ~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Spring”
poplar row behind the apple orchard
Awake! Awake! for the earliest gleam Of golden sunlight shines On the rippling waves, that brightly flow Beneath the flowering vines. Awake! Awake! for the low, sweet chant Of the wild-birds’ morning hymn Comes floating by on the fragrant air, Through the forest cool and dim; Then spread each wing, And work, and sing, Through the long, bright sunny hours; O’er the pleasant earth We journey forth, For a day among the flowers.
~Louisa May Alcott Lily-Bell and Thistledown Song I
a favorite rhododendron
It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what. ~John Galsworthy
a happy day put out to pasture
At morn when light mine eyes unsealed
I gazed upon the open field;
The rain had fallen in the night —
The landscape in the new day’s light
A countenance of grace revealed
Upon the meadow, wood and height.
The sun’s light was a smile of gold,
Ere shut by sudden fold on fold
Of surging, showering clouds from view;
No sooner hid than it broke through
A tearful smile upon the wold
Where earth reflected heaven’s blue.
The sky was as a canvas spun
To paint the new spring’s nocturns on;
A blended melody of tints —
The sea’s hue, and the myriad hints
Of garden-closes, when the sun
Hath stamped the work of nature’s mints.
~William Stanley Braithwaite
a happy day put out to blue skies in the breezerosemary
Flesh and fleece, fur and feather, Grass and green world all together, Star-eyed strawberry breasted Throstle above Her nested
Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin Forms and warms the life within, And bird and blossom swell In sod or sheath or shell.” – Gerard Manley Hopkins, The May Magnificat
Kale going to seed
“A delicate fabric of bird song Floats in the air, The smell of wet wild earth Is everywhere. Oh I must pass nothing by Without loving it much, The raindrop try with my lips, The grass with my touch; For how can I be sure I shall see again The world on the first of May Shining after the rain?” – Sara Teasdale, May Day
grape hyacinth and tulips
“Every spring is the only spring – a perpetual astonishment.” – Ellis Peters
“Some will tell you crocuses are heralds true of spring Others say that tulips showing buds are just the thing Point to peonies, say when magnolia blossoms show I look forward to the sight of other flowers though Cultivate your roses, grow your orchids in the dark Plant your posies row on row and stink up the whole park The flower that’s my favourite kind is found throughout the land A wilting, yellow dandelion, clutched in a grubby hand.” – Larry Tilander, Springtime of My Soul
“Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the happy bees, The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.” – Robert Frost, A Prayer in Spring
skimmia
“Poetry is the silence and speech between a wet struggling root of a flower and a sunlit blossom of that flower.” – Carl Sandburg
yew pollen
“With the coming of spring, I am calm again. “ – Gustav Mahler
the first of dozens of peonies
The wealthy man is not he who has money, but he who has the means to live in the luxurious state of early spring.
~Anton Chekhov
Virginia Creeper starting to do its creeper thing
Canadian mountains to the north
“This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes. I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration, Faces of people streaming across my gaze.” – D. H. Lawrence, The Enkindled Spring
“The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day. When the sun is out and the wind is still, You’re one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, a cloud come over the sunlit arch, And wind comes off a frozen peak, And you’re two months back in the middle of March.” – Robert Frost
spring sunrise over Mt Baker
“Hark, I hear a robin calling! List, the wind is from the south! And the orchard-bloom is falling Sweet as kisses on the mouth.
Come and let us seek together Springtime lore of daffodils, Giving to the golden weather Greeting on the sun-warm hills.” – Lucy Maud Montgomery, Spring Song
“If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom.” – Audra Foveo
Sam stops to smell the tulips
“It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” – Mark Twain
someone is looking his age….it was a rough winter
“Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants.” – Dorothy Parker 😉
Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed Their snow-white blossoms on my head, With brightest sunshine round me spread Of spring’s unclouded weather, In this sequestered nook how sweet To sit upon my orchard-seat! ~William Wordsworth
Sequester has a different meaning these days — a “take no prisoners” government withholding of funds it hadn’t collected to begin with.
I prefer the “hidden away for safe-keeping” definition — exactly how I feel when I walk into the orchard. I am cloistered in blossoms exuberant with potential.
Sequestered nook. Words and times change but the essence of spring’s promise never does.
To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death But what does that signify? Not only under ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing… – Edna St. Vincent Millay, from “Spring”
I know that we cannot depend on the return of Spring to heal us~
it is balm not cure.
I know that none of its beauty can bloom without it dying before~
it is a shroud thrown over to cover our decay.
I know I cannot be transformed by the warmth of the sun~
it is not enough for my skin to sweat when my heart lies still and cold.
I know I must dig deeper in holy ground for the truth~
it does not lie in perfumed blossoms and sweet blue skies.
I know what I know~
life in itself is nothing unless
death is overcome yet again
and our hearts, once broken,
begin to pulse red once more.
“November always seemed to me the Norway of the year.”
– Emily Dickinson
“Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.
What joy sufficient hath November felt?
What profit from the violet’s day of pain?
– Helen Hunt Jackson, Autumn Sonnet“O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being.
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead,
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.”
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
“How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colors gleaming in the sun.
At other times, they wildly fly
Until they nearly reach the sky.
Till all the trees stand stark and bare.
Exhausted, drop to earth below
To wait, like children, for the snow.”
– Elsie N. Brady, Leaves
“I saw the lovely arch
Of rainbow span the sky,
The gold sun burning
As the rain swept by.”
– Elizabeth Coatsworth, November
“Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem:
There’s not a leaf that falls upon the ground
But holds some joy of silence or of sound
Some spirits begotten of a summer dream.”
– Laman Blanchard
“The mountain air is fresh at the dusk of day;
The flying birds in flocks return.
In these things there lies a deep meaning;
I want to tell it, but have forgotten the words.”
– Tao Yuan Ming
“A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered about the distant mountains – a melancholy nature. The leaves were falling on all sides like the last illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable grief. Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.”
– Henri Frederic Amiel
“Even if something is left undone, everyone must take time to sit still and watch the leaves turn.”
– Elizabeth Lawrence
Barnstorming 