Back once again, practically the whole summer season gone. While it's not officially Autumn, it is September and that seems wonderful in itself.
I began Louis MacNeice's Autumn Journal recently in its August pages and now have arrived at MacNeice's lines I first read in Rosamunde Pilcher's The Shell Seekers back in the late 1980's--how could it have been that long?
September has come, it is hers
Whose vitality leaps in the autumn,
Whose nature prefers
Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace...
When I read those lines of Louis MacNeice that Richard Lomax was reading to Penelope Keeling, and the lines...
And all of London littered with remembered kisses
I just knew in my heart that Richard would die in the Invasion of Normandy and that Penelope, at war's end, would end up returning to Ambrose, poor woman.
It took me until this summer thirty something years later to order MacNeice's Autumn Journal but perhaps it suits my mood at this age better.
I feel a little differently about autumn this year. At my age I no longer wish July and August away in a pell-mell rush toward the season that is my favorite, but I am ready for it.
I'm ready to put a few autumn touches around the house, even the browning hydrangea blossoms that I waited too long to harvest.
Should I be concerned that these brown blooms seem beautiful to me?
Or that MacNeice's foreboding poetry of 1938 both makes me quietly happy and particularly sad?
That's okay, I reassure myself.
It is September and I will savor every day, maybe even sparkle a little bit the way the chandelier does on the Karen Adams calendar that my daughter Christy gives me each Christmas.
I hope you sparkle this September too!
It brightens my day to see you posting again. I just love your writing and photographs. September and October are bittersweet for me. While they are both beautiful months here, I hate to see summer go because our winters are brutal. And the cooler, changing weather is only a reminder of what's coming. Also, Phil passed away in September (the 25th) and my dad and Brian's mom in Oct.
ReplyDeleteWe are at 88 degrees today and then into the 90's the next few days. I know that's quite hot, but I won't complain. You know I'll take that kind of weather over winter. ;-)
I hope you have a comfy, cool spot to cozy up in and enjoy your new book this weekend.
Thank you, my dear friend. And I always think of you when September comes, knowing how much you dread those bitterly cold long winters there but most of all when I remember you having lost your darling Phil then. This mother's heart breaks just thinking of it. Thank you for visiting this too much absent blog friend, Melanie!
DeleteDewena, I love the way you have incorporated your own 'take' on Louis MacNiece's intricately lovely lines, 'Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace', to exemplify and pay tribute to the delightful duality and contrasting nuances of the author's observations, with your equally enchanting, 'quietly unhappy and particulary sad' to describe your feelings about them. To illustrate your point, your brown hydrangea blooms are, indeed, beautiful, in the eye of their beholder, despite their delayed harvest date. Enjoy them.
ReplyDeleteWishing you a sparkling September!
Poppy
Poppy, I'm sure that September partly means a return to your students along with the scenery around you turning to the mellow colors of autumn in Crete as you're on your walks. Hopefully though you'll still be able to get in your morning and afternoon swims a good while yet before the cold arrives.
DeleteA sparkling September to you also, dear Poppy!