Wednesday 21 September 2016

Falling?

We are nearing the fall equinox. The days are shorter, and cooler damper weather has arrived. I don't feel quite ready to give up summer, I am hanging on with this collection of pictures:

 
a bee is still busy gathering pollen

 
the dahlias are in bloom

 
 
 
September Midnight
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Sara Teasdale (1914)

        Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
    Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper’s horn, and far-off, high in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence
Under a moon waning and worn, broken,
    Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,
    Snow-hushed and heavy.

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
    Lest they forget them.

 
 
 
the leaves are changing

 
lots of berries on the holly

 
but a few summer flowers are still hanging on

 
my honeysuckle and wisteria have bloomed again
 
 
 
Autumn Fires
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Robert Louis Stevenson (from A Child’s Garden of Verses, 1885)
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In the other gardens
  And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
  See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
  And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
  The gray smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
  Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
  Fires in the fall!
 
 


berries are plentiful on the trees


sunflowers are nearly ready
 

 
“Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn--that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness--that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.”
 
 
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From the studio this week:
 
"Gated Quails" 12" X 24"
 
 
Well that's all for today, thanks for dropping by,
 
happy Wednesday, with whimsy,
 
Gillian