Color in the backyard…

 

"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."

-   Robert Frost, October

 

Sometimes the beauty of this time of year is nearly overwhelming but I would still like the day to seem “less brief”.

Apple Picking…

 

The day we went apple picking was yet another unseasonably hot October day…It is probably the first time we did this in shorts and t-shirts and still complained.   It just didn’t seem right.  The heat did increase the scent of the apples though, a wonderful cidery scent that you just can’t blame the yellow jackets for being attracted to…a scent that reminds me how I miss an old apple tree that once grew in our backyard, a tree so tall you would need a ladder to pick the apples if they were any good for eating.  The yellow jackets loved those apples too.

Apples

by Laurie Lee

Behold the apples’ rounded worlds:
juice-green of July rain,
the black polestar of flowers, the rind
mapped with its crimson stain.
The russet, crab and cottage red
burn to the sun’s hot brass,
then drop like sweat from every branch
and bubble in the grass.
They lie as wanton as they fall,
and where they fall and break,
the stallion clamps his crunching jaws,
the starling stabs his beak.
In each plump gourd the cidery bite
of boys’ teeth tears the skin;
the waltzing wasp consumes his share,
the bent worm enters in.
I, with as easy hunger, take
entire my season’s dole;
welcome the ripe, the sweet, the sour,
the hollow and the whole.

A Weekend Walk in Haiku…

All in fun, and inspired by Ruth of synch-ro-ni-zing, I went for a walk with haiku in mind….

So many acorns

squirrels will feast this winter

Oaks will grow in spring.

Young couples picnic

Old hunters start the season

I walk a worn path.

Midas touched maples

Reach out in autumn’s embrace

Gone with the next storm.

Ferns flicker yellow

The forest floor is aflame

No water will quench.

 

Just Rain…

After three gloriously sunny days we are back to rain, thunder-storms, and chill…I was feeling rather glum about it, rather mildewy around the edges, when I read this while I was browsing in a bookstore, escaping from a sudden squall…

Just Rain by Mary Oliver

The clouds

  did not say

    soon, but who can tell

      for sure, it wasn’t

the first time I had been

  fooled; the sky-doors

    opened and

      the rain began

to fall upon all of us: the

  grass, the leaves,

    my face, my shoulders

      and the flowered body

of the pond where

  it made its soft

    unnotational

      music on the pond’s

springy surface, and then

  the birds joined in and I too

    felt called toward such

      throat praise. Well,

the whole afternoon went on

  that way until I thought

    I could feel

      the almost born things

in the earth rejoicing. As for myself,

  I just kept walking, thinking:

    once more I am grateful

      to be present.

Her book “Evidence” went home with me…

Snow Remnants...

A Patch of Old Snow
by Robert Frost

There's a patch of old snow in a corner

That I should have guessed

Was a blow-away paper the rain

Had brought to rest.

It is speckled with grime as if

Small print overspread it,

The news of a day I've forgotten-

If I ever read it.

..........

Rain last night melted most of the remaining snow leaving a few snow remnants...I love how Frost associates these remnants with memories...