Autumn Colors

"Come said the wind to
the leaves one day,
Come o're the meadows
and we will play.

Put on your dresses
scarlet and gold,
For summer is gone
and the days grow cold."
- A Children's Song of the 1880's

Fall's floral foliage....

The Last Chrysanthemum

Why should this flower delay so long
To show its tremulous plumes?
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,
When flowers are in their tombs.

Through the slow summer, when the sun
Called to each frond and whorl
That all he could for flowers was being done,
Why did it not uncurl?

It must have felt that fervid call
Although it took no heed,
Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,
And saps all retrocede.

Too late its beauty, lonely thing,
The season's shine is spent,
Nothing remains for it but shivering
In tempests turbulent.

Had it a reason for delay,
Dreaming in witlessness
That for a bloom so delicately gay
Winter would stay its stress?

- I talk as if the thing were born
With sense to work its mind;
Yet it is but one mask of many worn
By the Great Face behind.

Thomas Hardy

Flower in the crannied wall

FLOWER in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies; -
Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower - but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The elusive purple cow

I never saw a purple cow
I hope to never see one
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one

Gelett Burgess

Nope, still haven't seen one.

Who has seen the wind?

Who has seen the wind
Neither you nor I
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing thro'
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by

Christina Rossetti

So I tried and tried to get the shot I wanted today of the wind passing through trees and meadows for about 30 minutes around 5PM. I just couldn't get the shot I wanted. But I did get a half way decent shot (see top photo) as I came back to the Homestead a little regusted (yes, I meant to say "regusted" it is NOT a typo). The 2nd shot is the handsome godson of mine a few years ago at Easter. Christina Rossetti's poem always comes to mind when this shot comes up on my screen saver. He is a cutie and I just don't get to see some family often enough. Sigh.

Daffodil season has begun!

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle in the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them dance; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:



For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

When the world is puddle-wonderful

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old ballonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rode and

it's
spring
and
the

goat-footed

ballonMan whistles
far
and
wee

e. e. cummings

With apologies to Robert Frost

Too often Robert Frost's last lines to "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" serve as a mantra to remind me of the amount of things I need to accomplish during a given day. Today I have been reciting the whole poem and I dedicate my 5:00 blog to Frost's thoughts as I paused this afternoon to take a picture of the snowy meadows adjacent to the Homestead. I'd like to take some time and go snowshoeing this evening (I have no horse to ride), but the reality is even though I don't have to go anywhere, I still have promises to keep and piles of paperwork to get through before I sleep. Piles of paperwork and pages of reading to do before I sleep. But those woods are lovely, dark, and deep - and snowshoeing here in Jersey is not guaranteed each year.
For those of you unfamiliar with his work, the whole poem appears at the end of this entry.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.