Tag: Summer

Summer’s Parting Sighs

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When summer’s end is nighing
  And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
  And all the feats I vowed
  When I was young and proud.

The weathercock at sunset
  Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
  That looked to Wales away
  And saw the last of day.

From hill and cloud and heaven
  The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
  And hushed the countryside,
  But I had youth and pride.

So here’s an end of roaming
  On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
  For summer’s parting sighs,
  And then the heart replies.
~A.E. Houseman from “XXXIX” from Last Poems

Mornings bring cooler air now, and there is haze hanging over lower ground where the previous day’s heat is rising. We are fast approaching the end of summer season, with its overabundance of constant activity, light and warmth. To be honest, I too am fried to a crisp; increasingly grateful for moisture, a bit of clinging mist, the reappearance of green shoots from parched ground. There is need for restoration after so much overproduction.

I don’t regret growing older, considering the alternative, but do feel sadness about not spending my younger years more aware of how quickly this all passes. I wish my eyes had been more open, my hearing more acute, my tongue devoted to silence, my skin sensitive to the slightest feather touch.

So I make up for it now as best I can – though my vision is cloudy at times, I strain to hear the quietest sounds, I talk when I should be listening, my skin wrinkling and dry. Each day brings new opportunity to finally get it right.

As the days end with foreshortened flare and our weather vane points from the north, I sigh deeply for all that has been.

And my heart replies. Indeed, my heart replies.

Moving at Summer’s Pace

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mowingfield

 

Cut grass lies frail:
Brief is the breath
Mown stalks exhale.
Long, long the death

It dies in the white hours
Of young-leafed June
With chestnut flowers,
With hedges snowlike strewn,

White lilac bowed,
Lost lanes of Queen Anne’s lace,
And that high-builded cloud
Moving at summer’s pace.~
~Philip Larkin “Cut Grass” from The Complete Poems

Light and wind are running
over the headed grass
as though the hill had 
melted and now flowed.
~Wendell Berry “June Wind”

The uncut field grass is growing heavier, falling over, lodged before it can be cut; the undulations of summer breezes urge it back upright.  It has matured too fast, rising up too lush, too overcome with itself so that it can no longer stand unsupported.  We must work fast to save it and more rain is on the way.

Light and wind work magic on a field of melting tall grass.  The blades of the mower will come to lay it to the ground in green streams that flow up and down the slopes.  It will lie comfortless in its stoneless cemetery rows, until tossed about by the tedder into random piles to dry, then raked back into a semblance of order in mounded lines flowing over the landscape.

It will be crushed and bound together for transport to the barn,
no longer bending but bent,
no longer flowing but flown,
no longer growing but grown

We move at summer’s pace to ensure the grasses become fodder for the beasts of the farm during the cold nights when the wind beats at the doors. It will melt in their mouths, as it was meant to be.  

In a Burst of Summertime

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In Summer, in a burst of summertime
Following falls and falls of rain,
When the air was sweet-and-sour of the flown fineflower of
Those goldnails and their gaylinks that hang along a lime;
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Cheery Beggar”

Open the window, and let the air 
Freshly blow upon face and hair, 
And fill the room, as it fills the night, 
With the breath of the rain’s sweet might. 

Nought will I have, not a window-pane, 
‘Twixt me and the air and the great good rain, 
Which ever shall sing me sharp lullabies; 
And God’s own darkness shall close mine eyes; 
And I will sleep, with all things blest, 
In the pure earth-shadow of natural rest.
~James Henry Leigh Hunt from “A Night-Rain in Summer”

Sweet and sour extends far beyond a Chinese menu;
it is the daily air I breathe.

I am but a cheery beggar in this summer world,
hanging tight to the sweetness of each glorious moment
yet knowing it cannot last:

the startling twilight gold of a July rain,
the intense green of thirsty fields,
a rainbow suspended in misty haze,
the clouds racing to win the day’s finish line.

But as beggars aren’t choosers,
sweet rain ruins hay harvest
and berries turn to mold on the vine.

The sky stooping to kiss the earth
may bring mud and flood.

I breathe deeply now of petrichor:
the scent of raindrops falling on dry land
as if I could wear it like perfume
on those sour days of drought.



The Lapse of Time

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A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener.
So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts.
We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and
took advantage of every accident that befell us.

Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller’s wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time.
~Henry David Thoreau from “Simplicity” in Walden.

I’m completely unskilled at doing nothing and have no idea how to go about it.

There is no continuing education course or training in it. I can’t get credit hours for accumulating guilt about wasting time — I get antsy at the mere thought of inactivity. Simply watching the hours pass makes me itchy for productivity.

So I’m practicing at nothing whatsoever this summer, just to see if I’m really cut out for it. I’ve read up on “how to rest”: connecting to nature, taking a break from being responsible, choosing not to be helpful and just remaining still and to be content to watch what is around me. Except for the nature part, I’m an utter failure otherwise.

It starts to feel like work to not work.

Even Thoreau ended up writing down and then publishing his meandering thoughts. Sounds like work to me.

Time for a nap.

A Shimmering Dusk

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Evening, and all the birds
In a chorus of shimmering sound
Are easing their hearts of joy
For miles around.

The air is blue and sweet,
The few first stars are white,–
Oh let me like the birds
Sing before night.
~Sara Teasdale “Dusk in June”

photo by Nate Gibson

Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground. 
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth. 
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder
wand’ring far alone
Of shadows on the stars.
~James Agee “Sure on this Shining Night”

photo by Nate Gibson

It is high summer holding the earth now;
our hearts whole and healed in a shimmering dusk.

I weep for wonder that we have this time,
at this place, singing under these stars.

May we live sure that on another shining night,
sometime, we know not when, we know not how,
we will all be together again.

Amen and Amen.

Electrified With Morning

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Video by Harry Rodenberger
Video by Harry Rodenberger

One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day…
~Aristotle from The Nicomachean Ethics

God gives every bird his worm,
but He does not throw it into the nest. 
~Swedish Proverb

You wake wanting the dream
you left behind in sleep,
water washing through everything,
clearing away sediment
of years, uncovering the lost
and forgotten. You hear the sun
breaking on cold grass,
on eaves, on stone steps
outside. You see light
igniting sparks of dust
in the air. You feel for the first
time in years the world
electrified with morning.

You know something has changed
in the night, something you thought
gone from the world has come back:
shooting stars in the pasture,
sleeping beneath a field
of daisies, wisteria climbing
over fences, houses, trees.

This is a place that smells
like childhood and old age.
It is a limb you swung from,
a field you go back to.
It is a part of whatever you do.
~Scott Owen “Arrival of the Past”

The beginning of summer brings back early childhood memories of waking early in the morning with no plans for the day other than just showing up.

As a kid, I was never bored with so many open-ended hours before me; the air felt electric with potential adventures, whether it was building a tree fort, bushwhacking a new trail in the woods, searching out killdeer nests in the field, catching butterflies, or watching a salamander sunning itself for hours. The possibilities felt infinite and I was free as a bird to go looking for what the day had to offer.

By the time I was ten, I began to work to earn money to make my dream (owning my own horse) come true – picking berries, weeding gardens, babysitting neighbor kids. The work routine started early as dreams don’t happen without striving for them.

Now for the first time in 55 years, I awake knowing life has changed in the night: I don’t have a schedule and don’t need to show up to a job. The long summer days I thought were gone and forgotten have been here all along, just now uncovered again.

I can go back to those days of electrifying potential open-ended hours, just to simply show up to the moments before me.

I stand here, mouth open, ready to be fed.

Moment of Balance

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What follows the light is what precedes it:
the moment of balance, of dark equivalence.

But tonight we sit in the garden in our canvas chairs
so late into the evening –
why should we look either forward or backwards?
Why should we be forced to remember:
it is in our blood, this knowledge.
Shortness of the days; darkness, coldness of winter.
It is in our blood and bones; it is in our history.
It takes a genius to forget these things.
~Louise Glück from “Solstice”

Today we stand, wavering,
on a cusp of light and shadow~
this knowledge of what’s to come
rests deep in our bones.

We’ve been here before,
bidding the sun to return.

We can not forget,
as darkness begins to claim our days again.

We remember,
He promised to never let darkness
overwhelm us again.

A Fire in the Stove

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After three weeks of hot weather and drought,
           we’ve had a week of cold and rain,
just the way it ought to be here in the north,
            in June, a fire going in the woodstove
all day long, so you can go outside in the cold
            and rain anytime and smell
the wood smoke in the air.

This is the way I love it. This is why
           I came here almost
fifty years ago. What is June anyway
          without cold and rain
and a fire going in the stove all day?
~David Budbill – “What is June Anyway?”

It has been a dry hot June here in Washington up until early this morning before dawn. I woke to the somewhat unfamiliar sound of dripping, a rain so subtle it was trying to sneak in under the cover of darkness without anyone noticing it had been missing for weeks.

I turned on the fire in the gas stove to take the morning chill out of this last day of spring, reminding myself just a week ago I had fans going in the house 24 hours a day.

Brisk rainy days in June may not be the choice of berry growers, brides or baseball fans, but I’m drinking it up. This is predicted to be another smoky summer due to widespread Canadian forest fires, so smelling wood smoke in the air is not at all comforting.

Despite the inconvenience to summer outdoor plans and harvesting, may the rains continue while the fields green up and the rivers and streams replenish, and may the air smell sweet with moisture.

It’s almost summer and the living is easy when we wake up to the sound of dripping.

A Strange Sweet Sorrow

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mapleleaf102018

 

 

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The passing of the summer fills again
my heart with strange sweet sorrow, and I find
the very moments precious in my palm.
Each dawn I did not see, each night the stars
in spangled pattern shone, unknown to me,
are counted out against me by my God,
who charges me to see all lovely things…
~Jane Tyson Clement from “Autumn”

 

 

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We’re already a month into autumn and I’ve had a hard time letting go of summer.

The earth also is struggling with the inevitable transition as the last few weeks have been filled with blue skies, warm days and no killing frosts.

In short, it seemed perfection: sweater weather filled with vibrant leaf color, clear moonlit nights and outstanding sunrises.

I feel I must see it all, to witness and record and savor it.  God convicted us to see, listen, taste and believe.

Can we ever hope for a more merciful sentence given the trouble we’ve been to Him?  He loves us still.

See, listen, taste and believe.  I do and I will.

 

 

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Nowhere to Hide You

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heathermeadowsfoliage1
heathermeadowsfoliage2
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
heathermeadowfoliage3
septembernorth
Each month has its special light
though luminous September sweeps them all;
I must grasp tightly before tomorrow slips away to October.
Like a squirrel, there must be a place
I can hide such riches, tuck the light away in a hole,
pile shells on top,
to bring it out on the darkest winter day
and feast upon it.
I do know better;
this glow follows the birds as they fly away.
They keep it in safekeeping
towing it back on their wings come spring.
In the meantime I must remember
the endless summer that is September.
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