bienvenue septembre.

1 September 2013

Ode to Autumn 

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells. 

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. 

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
- John Keats, 1819 (written after his own Sunday walk in the countryside)

The first of September. What is left of August lingers in the air, but with the arrival of this autumnal month comes change. Ominous clouds roll in from the ocean, the wind reveals a hint of silver hidden under the trees' leaves, & somehow I know that change is coming for me too. It is the great unknown. It presents itself with intense excitement, mingling in fear & delight. I cannot know what lies ahead along my path. I can only greet it as an opportunity, like a revitalizing wind & a renewing rain that welcomes me into my succeeding season. Greetings to September, & as always, happy eatings & cheers!