As the days grow short

"Shedding"  photo by Cylvia Hayes

“Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.”

― Emily Brontë, Bronte: Poems

We Store Our Youth Within Us

50th

25th

 

I had a wonderful time at my 50th high school reunion.  However, it was so strange to see these men and women I knew as young and lithe with color in their hair and smooth taut skin...

Some of them I did not recognize at first. Then, looking deeply into their faces, I saw the young faces still in there - the eyes, nose, and mouth revealed them.

Joseph Conrad said this:

“We wander in our thousands over the
face of the earth, the illustrious and the obscure, earning beyond the
seas our fame, our money, or only a crust of bread; but it seems to me
that for each of us going home must be like going to render an account.
We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends--those whom we
obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most
free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties,--even those for whom
home holds no dear face, no familiar voice,--even they have to meet the
spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its
valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its trees--a
mute friend, judge, and inspirer.”
― Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim    


I don't know the author of this one, but I like it:

“They waited awhile before lighting the candles; the gloom allowed the past to slip cozily into the present. But the memories were of a time that was gone and didn't overshadow the present. But the memories were vivid, and they made the friends feel both young and old...When Chrsitanne finally lit the candles and they saw one another clearly again, she was happy to see in the old faces of the others the young faces they had come across in their memories. we store our youth within us, we can go back to it and find ourselves in it, but it is past--melancholy filled their hearts, and sympathy, for one another and for themselves.”
― The Weekend

and this:

The thing is, when you see your old friends, you come face to face with yourself. I run into someone I've known for 40 or 50 years, and they're old. And I suddenly realize I'm old. It comes as an enormous shock to me.
 Polly Bergen
 

I have been searching for a quote I heard a year or so ago, and I can't find it, and I can't quite replicate it. I  says something about being able to see one's younger self reflected in the eyes of one's old friends.  I felt that at this reunion.

Reunion Time

This afternoon I am driving East to my hometown to attend the 50th reunion of my high school class.

I've been to several class reunions over the years, but this one is a milestone.  I hear that many of my former classmates are attending, and I am so curious to see who shows up.

I loved that school, and have many happy memories.

 I didn't stay in touch with most of them, but we shared a history together of the growing up years.


The lyrics of a John Denver song come to mind:


 What a friend we have in time
Gives us children, makes us wine
Tells us what to take or leave behind

And the gifts of growing old
Are the stories to be told
Of the feelings more precious than gold

Friends I will remember you, think of you
Pray for you
and when another day is through
I'll still be friends with you

Babies days are never long
Mother's laugh is baby's song
Gives us all the hope to carry on
Friends I will remember you, think of you
Pray for you
And when another day is through
I'll still be friends with you

Friends I will remember you,
Think of you, pray for you
And when another day is through
I'll still be Friends with You

Friends I will remember you,
Think of you, pray for you
And when another day is through
I'll still be Friends with You

I am Waiting for a Rebirth of Wonder

I am also waiting for this election season to be over.  Twenty-one more days!

In the USA, as we approach the most frightening national election in my memory, I find this poem by the Beat Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti to be appropriate:



I Am Waiting               by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

St. Luke's Little Summer

Full Hunter's Moon  on October 16... photo from Energiaradio


Tomorrow is October 18 , the feast of St. Luke, the Evangelist.  Here's some interesting lore about this day:

St. Luke's Little Summer

Lovely, summerlike days that occur around October 18 are called St. Luke's Little Summer in honor of the saint's feast day. In olden days, St. Luke's Day did not receive as much attention in the secular world as St. John's Day (June 24) and Michaelmas (September 29), so to keep from being forgotten, St. Luke presented us with some golden days to cherish before the coming of winter, or so the story goes. Some folks call this Indian Summer, but that officially occurs between November 11 and November 20.

 

It certainly felt like summer here today -  the loveliest, mildest of summer.  The Ladybugs have invaded  too, just suddenly appearing all over the door of Bradley Hall, where my office is located.

 

 

The Argument

 

Here’s a poem by Jane Kenyon:


The Argument

On the way to the village store
I drive through a down-draft
from the neighbor’s chimney.
Woodsmoke tumbles from the eaves
backlit by sun, reminding me
of the fire and sulfur of Grandmother’s
vengeful God, the one who disapproves
of jeans and shorts for girls,
dancing, strong waters, and adultery.

A moment later the smoke enters
the car, although the windows are tight,
insinuating that I might, like Judas,
and the foolish virgins, and the rich
young man, have been made for unquenchable
fire. God will need something to burn
if the fire is to be unquenchable.

“All things work together for the good
for those who love God,” she said
to comfort me at Uncle Hazen’s funeral,
where Father held me up to see
the maroon gladiolus that trembled
as we approached the bier, the elaborate
shirred satin, brass fittings, anything,

oh, anything but Uncle’s squelched
and made-up face.
“No! NO! How is it good to be dead?”
I cried afterward, wild-eyed and flushed.
“God’s ways are not our ways,”
she said then out of pity
and the wish to forestall the argument.

Wrapped in our Loneliness

Balcony Figure      painting by Marie Fox

 

Here's a poem about poets  by Nikki Giovanni:

 

poetry is motion graceful
as a fawn
gentle as a teardrop
strong like the eye
finding peace in a crowded room
we poets tend to think
our words are golden
though emotion speaks too
loudly to be defined
by silence
sometimes after midnight or just before
the dawn
we sit typewriter in hand
pulling loneliness around us
forgetting our lovers or children
who are sleeping
ignoring the weary wariness
of our own logic
to compose a poem
no one understands it
it never says “love me” for poets are
beyond love it never says “accept me” for poems seek not
acceptance but controversy
it only says “i am” and therefore
i concede that you are too
a poem is pure energy
horizontally contained
between the mind of the poet and the ear of the reader
if it does not sing discard the ear
for poetry is song
if it does not delight discard
the heart for poetry is joy
if it does not inform then close
off the brain for it is dead
if it cannot heed the insistent message
that life is precious
which is all we poets
wrapped in our loneliness
are trying to say

Noia at the Window     painting by Salvador Dali

 

The Value of October

painting by Marike Scholtents

Here's a poem by Robert Frost:


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.