September Poems

Spring scarce had greener fields to show than these
Of mid September; through the still warm noon
The rivulets ripple forth a gladder tune
Than ever in the summer; from the trees
Dusk-green, and murmuring inward melodies,
No leaf drops yet; only our evenings swoon
In pallid skies more suddenly, and the moon
Finds motionless white mists out on the leas.
          – Edward Dowden, “In September“

I can hear
September’s
leaf
following
me
down
the asphalt
surface
of Locust Street
cartwheeling
on pins
when suddenly,
it stops –
just
to see
if I’ll turn
to look.
          - [ unattributed ]

(I am trying to identify the author of the second poem but have not yet; please comment if you know the author and I will update the post accordingly.)

Rain, Rain

Early autumn is a wet time of year here. Rain-heavy clouds spin out of the North, West, South, and loosen their burdens before passing on. Sometimes the sky closes and the sun disappears for weeks on end. It can be a gloomy, grim time for those still hoping to cling to a bit more summer.

But I love it. Granted, the prolonged rain can be problematic and tiresome, and I do miss the sunshine, but it is so beautiful. Colors are deep and vibrant, washed clean by the rain and unbleached by the sun. It’s cool enough for a flannel shirt in the morning, a small fire in the evening, cups of hot tea and cocoa and steaming bowls at every meal. A light but incessant breeze soughs in the trees, and I am home. These sounds, smells, colors, conditions echo in my heart and settle with the well-worn comfort of old jeans. I am home.

Rain drips from the eaves, pecks on the roof like a flock of birds. Shallow puddles bleed out from the grass, fill the tracks of the driveway, huddle in small pockets on the sidewalks. Trees and bushes swing with the breeze, dance with a gray sky. It is both bleak and beautiful. And I love it.

Photo courtesy of Harshad Sharma.

Changing Seasons

With the traditional close of summer last weekend and the official close only a week and a half away, people are starting to gear up for fall. Autumnal colors have cropped up in displays and advertisements, and Halloween accoutrement are beginning to appear in stores everywhere. Seasons are changing.

I know a lot of people are somewhat saddened by the passing of summer, especially those who have to go back to school and those who see fall as little more than a harbinger of another winter. But fall is my favorite season. It has been for as long as I can remember. Summer was always great – full of days spent in the sun and water, watching clouds and rolling in the grass – but autumn brought the year’s best weather and brightest colors. It meant going back to school and re-joining friends I had not seen all summer (and, yes, I was one of the few children who didn’t mind school). Fall also meant the sweets and candies of Halloween, the fantastic dishes of Thanksgiving (as well as the leftovers for the days that followed), and, if we were lucky, the first snow.

Now my point of view is different, but my enjoyment and excitement have hardly changed. Autumn contains the last opportunities given by the living seasons – begun in the first green shoots of spring and finished in the last colored leaves of fall. It is the last chance to get out there and shake a leg before the frosts become icicles hanging from the eaves and a howling winter wind drives us – and most other animals – inside for shelter and warmth. It is a celebration of life, of having survived thus far.

It is also a reminder that winter is just around the corner. It is a last chance to settle warm-weather affairs and prepare for the cold-weather challenges to come. It is a reminder that to all things there is a season, and that someday Death will nip us as easily as frost does flowers. It heralds an end of things, but also the hope of new beginnings, however far off they may seem. And what a way to go: all beauty and color and light before that last long darkness.

I love fall. I hope you will enjoy it as well.

Surprise Lilies

As long as I have lived here, surprise lilies have bloomed every summer in two patches, presumably planted by some former owner (as I and my black thumb have planted nothing surviving more than a couple seasons). One patch out in front of the house ringed a small decorative tree which died long ago, leaving them isolated in the middle of an open, grassy yard; the other patch, out back, circled two still-lively oaks. But most years they hardly bloomed, and lately had managed only half a dozen blossoms altogether. I thought their soft pink faces were slowly dying out.

But this summer has been wetter and cooler than most, and when they began to bloom it was clear that this year the surprise lilies were going to live up to their name.

I’ve counted 66 buds and blossoms so far. Out front, the lilies have sprung up in their circle like an overgrown fairy ring. And the oaks out back are wearing a frilly pink skirt above their spreading roots. It’s beautiful, and totally unexpected.

What a lovely late-July surprise.

Blue World

I love to swim. For just about as long as I can remember, water and I have been inseparable, and it seems as though the older I get the more I yearn for it. I was spoilt from a young age, of course. We grew up just on a hill above a creek, then moved to a hill between a creek and a river, and when I was older I spent ten glorious years at the ocean’s edge. As I said, spoilt.

We went camping recently to one of our favorite spots replete with rocky bluffs and clear water … and gorgeous swimming holes. All natural, these holes change depth and breadth and flow as quickly as the stream that feeds them. Last year, a freak flash flood scooped out the creekbed to solid rock, leaving the swimming holes an average of seven feet on the deep side. Lined with rocky outcrops perfect for cannonballs and shallow dives, it’s near paradise for a water-lover.

So while camping I spent as much time in the water as possible, skipping meals and cutting sleep short to lounge in the medium I feel I was made for. We even went for a few night dips when the heat and humidity drove us from our beds. Day by day my tan reddened to full-fledged burn but I stayed and splashed and swam and dove like a frog perfectly content in its pond. Until it came time to leave.

Leaving is always the hardest part. The last swim, the endmost dive, the irretrievable closing of blue-green water as you step out and begin that final climb up the gravel bar of the shallow side toward camp, and vehicle, and civilization. How I hate to leave.

There is a part of me always fearful that “this will be the last time,” that our next visit will find locked gates, barricaded roads, large warnings posted on trees and signposts that the area is closed henceforth. It’s happened before. As kids, the land trust surrounding our best swimming hole was purchased and access closed off without forewarning. We drove up one sweltering summer morning to find padlocked iron gates across the road and to this day it has not re-opened. Two years ago there was an E. coli scare on our now-favorite creek and accessible portions were closed to all water activities for most of the summer. It was an aberration, state employees said, a weird combination of low rainfall, limited water sources, and large watersheds. But they almost closed it again this year after a long dry spell.

Civilization creeps in. Wilderness recedes. But I am grateful for the times I am privileged to visit and enjoy, unrestrainedly, these watery wonders. I look forward to the next time I can brace my feet, aim my hands, and erupt into a liquid world full of silver bubbles and cold sunbeams, gravity-defying weightlessness and dusk-blue infinities.

For our earthen world today, good water is a miracle in itself.