Autumn Abundance

"One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature -- inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable wealth of the universe, and faithfully watch and wait the reappearance of everything that melts and fades and dies about us, feeling sure that its next appearance will be better and more beautiful than the last. " ---- John Muir

Poetry Thursday - Exploring "October"

October by Madison Cawein

I oft have met her slowly wandering
Beside a leafy stream, her locks blown wild,
Her cheeks a hectic flush, more fair than Spring,
As if on her the sumach copse had smiled.
Or I have seen her sitting, tall and brown,--
Her gentle eyes with foolish weeping dim,--
Beneath a twisted oak from whose red leaves
She wound great drowsy wreaths and cast them down;
The west-wind in her hair, that made it swim
Far out behind, deep as the rustling sheaves.

Or in the hill-lands I have often seen
The marvel of her passage; glimpses faint
Of glimmering woods that glanced the hills between,
Like Indian faces, fierce with forest paint.
Or I have met her 'twixt two beechen hills,
Within a dingled valley near a fall,
Held in her nut-brown hand one cardinal flower;
Or wading dimly where the leaf-dammed rills
Went babbling through the wildwood's arrased hall,
Where burned the beech and maples glared their power.

Or I have met her by some ruined mill,
Where trailed the crimson creeper, serpentine,
On fallen leaves that stirred and rustled chill,
And watched her swinging in the wild-grape vine.
While Beauty, sad among the vales and mountains,
More sad than death, or all that death can teach,
Dreamed of decay and stretched appealing arms,
Where splashed the murmur of the forest's fountains;
With all her loveliness did she beseech,
And all the sorrow of her wildwood charms.

Once only in a hollow, girt with trees,
A-dream amid wild asters filled with rain,
I glimpsed her cheeks red-berried by the breeze,
In her dark eyes the night's sidereal stain.
And once upon an orchard's tangled path,
Where all the goldenrod had turned to brown,
Where russets rolled and leaves were sweet of breath,
I have beheld her 'mid her aftermath
Of blossoms standing, in her gypsy gown,
Within her gaze the deeps of life and death.

Explore more poetry about time and place with Poetry Thursday

Looking at Nature

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread,
places to play in and pray in,
where nature may heal
and give strength to body and soul alike."
--- John Muir

For Harmony --- Get well soon Harmony

Haiku - Mist

Trying to vanquish
drifting early morning mist
the sun peeks through

For more poetry
One Deep Breath

Late October

I found ten kinds of wild flowers growing
On a steely day that looked like snowing:
Queen Anne’s lace, and blue heal-all,
A buttercup, straggling, grown too tall,
A rusty aster, a chicory flower ---
Ten I found in half an hour.
The air was blurred with dry leaves flying,
Gold and scarlet, gaily dying.
A squirrel ran off with a nut in his mouth,
And always, always, flying south,
Twittering, the birds went by
Flickering sharp against the sky,
Some in great bows, some in wedges,
Some in bands with wavering edges,
Flocks and flocks were flying over
With the north wind for their drover.
“Flowers,” I said, “you’d better go,
Surely it’s coming on for snow,” ---
They did not heed me, nor heed the birds,
Twittering thin, far-fallen words ---
The others thought of tomorrow, but they
Only remembered yesterday.
---- Sara Teasdale

After reading the Sara Teasdale poem "Late October" I grabbed my camera, wandered down the stairs and began exploring - trying to see those "flowers of Late October."

At the back edge of the property, nearly hidden in the russet bracken ferns and tall pines, I discovered a huge clump of monkshood in full bloom... It has ignored the frost, wind and rain and blooms as though it were expecting spring.
In the middle of our small pond a waterlily bud is hoping for one more sunny day so it can burst into bloom before winter arrives.

A Vagabond Song

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood ---
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.
---- Bliss Carman