hear November whisper and sing
rain drops and ball moss cling
morning light holds onto night
a few brown leaves hang on tight
I linger like these and pray
reluctant to busy my day
yet still, yet silent
clinging
Clinging
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Category Archives: Autumn
October Lumosity
scarlet leaf glowing in morning light
dew drops glistening on a pansy petal
cranberry glass plate scatters sunset rays
“Pay attention
be astonished
tell about it.”
Mary Oliver
Autumn in An Unexpected Place
I might have been sitting on an agreeable rock or lying under a Chinese Tallow tree, one of our few Texas Gulf Coast trees that can be counted on to scatter scarlet and gold leaves in the Fall.
I might have traveled a few hundred miles north to woods that were a childhood delight for me when the leaves turned.
But I only traveled to the Medical Center. I only lay on a hard, narrow table under a computerized tomography scanner that rotated around my body, assessing my lungs – a painless procedure that is a tool for detecting and identifying problems in my body. I have done this many times before because I have nodules in my lungs that need to be monitored plus some respiratory difficulties. But when I looked up from my narrow perch, this time I saw this illuminated image. And it took my breath away – in a good way. It made me smile, and I thanked the technician for this gift.
I thank God for the natural beauty which someone photographed. It takes little imagination to shut out all the antiseptic environment in that room and be transported to “light pouring down into the woods and breaking into the shapes and tones of things.”
,
Directions (excerpt)
The best time is late afternoon
when the sun strobes through
the columns of trees as you are hiking up,
and when you find an agreeable rock
to sit on, you will be able to see
the light pouring down into the woods
and breaking into the shapes and tones
of things and you will hear nothing
but a sprig of birdsong or the leafy
falling of a cone or nut through the trees,
and if this is your day you might even
spot a hare or feel the wing-beats of geese
driving overhead toward some destination.
But it is hard to speak of these things
how the voices of light enter the body
and begin to recite their stories
how the earth holds us painfully against
its breast made of humus and brambles
how we who will soon be gone regard
the entities that continue to return
greener than ever, spring water flowing
through a meadow and the shadows of clouds
passing over the hills and the ground
where we stand in the tremble of thought
taking the vast outside into ourselves.
—Billy Collins, The Art of Drowning
October
Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves! ~Humbert Wolf
October evenings in our part of Southeast Texas don’t get cooler and then cold. We are as likely to have echoes of summer heat as to welcome sweater weather. But that does not mean Fall has not arrived. We may not have trees blazing with orange and red and gold, but we do have autumnal flags.
a scattering of scarlet crepe myrtle leaves
a skittering of breeze stirred grasses
and pumpkins on my porch
Sunsets and Sonnet 73
Today is my birthday, and I almost missed one of my gifts! While I was thinking about how many sunsets and sunrises I have been gifted in 73 years, I almost failed to go outside and witness the blaze of glory that is today’s sunset. We do that, don’t we? We busy ourselves with good thoughts and activity and miss the glory of what is happening right this minute. I am thankful for every day and every blessing I have been given. But I want to practice being present in the moment that will pass forever if I don’t (in Mary Oliver’s words) pay attention, be astonished and tell about it. Today’s sunset will be remembered, but the gift it has given me is more than its beauty. Help me, Lord, to celebrate the now.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold (Sonnet 73) William Shakespeare
That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou see'st the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; .... This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, the truth;
Where there is doubt, the faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life
~ attributed to St. Francis of Assisi
October
Fall Song
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries — roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay — how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
From Mary Oliver, American Primitive (1984), which won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry
Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea’s side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.
Dylan Thomas
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
Small Things
Announcing Autumn on my porch,Duranta berries are reminders of the beauty and importance of small things. Birds love these berries, so I welcome cardinals and mockingbirds as morning visitors. Their thank you notes trill as they perch on my kitchen windowsill. I enjoyed the plant’s summer blooms, but the small berries they left are an enchanting reminder of joy we find when we watch for life as it is made up of moments.
I think of [my life] in all its small component parts: the snowdrops, the daffodils; the feeling of one of my kids sitting close beside me on the couch; the way my husband looks when he reads with the lamp behind him; fettuccine Alfredo; fudge; Gone with the Wind, Pride and Prejudice. Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement.
~ Anna Quindlen, in A Short Guide to a Happy Life
Dancing Grasses
waving alleluias
grasses dance in morning breeze
to rhythm of the seasons
Hints of Autumn
In three more days, we can say that Fall has arrived because the calendar page turns and there it is. But I can feel it coming from a long way before. The leaves on our South Texas trees may not sport the vivid varieties of scarlet and orange and gold which we see in climates that have more distinct season changes, but there are hints. Crepe myrtle leaves begin to look different in morning light, even before they get touched with red. Other leaves just begin to drop. Mornings have the slightest hint of cool, and the light changes. I begin to look forward to baking more and spending more time on the back porch. I check the supplies of cinnamon and nutmeg and maple syrup. There are whispers of Autumn everywhere this week.
a pumpkin appears by my front door
I slice apples for dipping in caramel
the ginger cat waits patiently
Stones and Feathers 