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Life on the Deckle Edge

Poetry Friday - Interrupted by Ian

 

Greetings!  Well, as I type this, we're under a hurricane warning. The last couple of days have been spent prepping just in case, and mostly trying to keep tabs on my side of the family (ALL of them in Florida!) and some friends there, too.  And now they've ushered Ian out of the Sunshine State and sent him our direction.  We are not expecting the scale of the devastation Florida endured.  But, gotta run.  Be sure to check out the Roundup at The Opposite of Indifference, where Tabatha has some memes that are appropriate for this circumstance, anyway, and offer a bit of humor!

Stay safe & see you next week! ;0)

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Poetry Friday - "Fall, leaves, fall" by Emily Bronte

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!

 

On the road today (a road full of farms and fields with large rolls of freshly cut hay), so I'm just here with a HAPPY FALL wave and a short, classic poem.  Autumn is my favorite season, though I wouldn't quite describe it the way Emily B. did here... but then again, there's a bit of thrill in the macabre this time of year.

 

 

 

Fall, leaves, fall

 

by Emily Bronte (1818-1848)

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.


I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night's decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

 

 

Wishing you and yours plenty of un-dreary days as our calendars flutter into Fall and beyond! 

 

Our year-round Rose has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Imagine the Possibilities.. drift on over and enjoy!

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Poetry Friday - Farewell to Summer with Two Classic September Poems

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!

 

Here in coastal South Carolina, the days are still warm, but not excessively hot; some leaves are scattered on the ground; and we're still keeping a cautious eye ocean-ward after an unusually quiet start to the hurricane season in our corner of the Atlantic, anyway. (The peak Atlantic season occurs in September and October.)

 

Our kids in and near the mountains report cooler days of late, and at our Upstate South Carolina house last weekend, the deep green of summer is giving away to early hints of color in the trees. 

 

Back at the coast, I've been making collages featuring actual postcards of bathing beauties from the early 1900s.  I have some for sale at a local shop here, and I'll be adding some (such as the one pictured above) to my Etsy shop, too.  I guess it's my way of hanging on to summer a wee bit, even as the calendar pages turn themselves to autumn....

 

Here are a couple of September poems to help me get oriented, and maybe they'll strike your fancy as well. The first even begins with a nod to the sea.

 

 

 

September


By Joanne Kyger (1934-2017)

 

The grasses are light brown
and the ocean comes in
long shimmering lines
under the fleet from last night
which dozes now in the early morning 

 

...

 

Enjoy the rest of this rich poem here.  And you can read more about Joanne Kyger's rich life here

 

 

And here is a poem published in 1914, a few years after that postcard above was published, as a matter of fact. 

 

 

 

September Midnight


By Sara Teasdale

 
Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.

 

The grasshopper's horn, and far-off, high in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence
Under a moon waning and worn, broken,
Tired with summer.

 

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heavy.

 

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.

 


Originally published in Poetry, March 1914. You can read more about Sara Teasdale here

 

Back to the present, hop on over to Australia to enjoy a different season from mine in the Northern Hemisphere, and lots of great poetry - Kat Apel has our Roundup (& a "Katch-up"!).  Thanks, Kat. :0)

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Poetry Friday - Hearts in Great Britain & Poetry by Vita Sackville-West

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers - I had already sipped my daily cup of English tea (Clipper) early on Thursday before I heard the worrisome news of the Queen's decline, and then, later, the sad news of her death. 

 

Between both of those pieces of news, my mind went back to our 1994 trip to England to visit friends of Jeff's family and have a look around.  (Our Morgan was just a wee two-year-old.) We were based in Kent, with a sojourn or two to London. For a couple of days, our little family stayed at a renovated Victorian farmhouse on the grounds of Sissinghurst Castle.  An Elizabethan tower survives, and in the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I did visit a mansion house there.

 

Now the world-renowned gardens draw throngs of visitors each year.  These spectacular outdoor rooms were created in the 1930s by poet and writer Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson (an author and diplomat).  They were quite the bohemians and interesting characters.  You can learn more about them and the castle gardens here

 

Sackville-West (1892-1962) published novels as well as poetry and also wrote articles, letters, and journals. She loved the outdoors, as did Queen Elizabeth II.  

 

On our trip, at Sissinghurst, I bought an edition of two of Sackville-West's most famous works together - The Land & The Garden. The book has striking illustrations by Peter Firmin and an introduction by Nigel Nicolson (Frome and London: Webb & Bower, 1989).

 

As we're now about to welcome Fall, and with the heavy news from across The Pond, I thought these opening words from AUTMUMN (part of THE LAND) were fitting:

 

AUTUMN

 

by Vita Sackville-West

 

(excerpt)

 

How slow the darkness comes, once daylight's gone,

A slowness natural after English day,

So unimpassioned, tardy to move on,

No southern violence that burns away,

Ardent to live, and eager to be done.

The twilight lingers, etching tree on sky;

The gap's a portal on the ridge's crest;

The partridge coveys call beyond the rye;

Still some red bar of sunset cracks the west;

The orange harvest-moon like a dull sun

Rolls silent up the east above the hill;

Earth like a sleeper breathes, and all is still

This hour of after-day, the dying day's bequest,

This autumn dusk, when neither day nor night

Urges a man to strive or sleep; he stands

Filled with the calm of that familiar place,

 

...

 

(The verses go on for miles....)

 

I'm grateful that Queen Elizabeth was able to say her goodbyes in a place that was calm and familiar to her.  I heard in a news story that she liked to tell guests at Balmoral exactly where to stand outside on the grounds at midnight, to have the best view of the stars in the vast Scottish sky.

 

Our wonderful Carol has this week's Roundup at Beyond Literacy Week.  Thank you, Carol!

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Poetry Friday - Go See Linda at TeacherDance!

Hellooooo!  I'll be on the road this weekend so just offering up a signpost today - Go start your long weekend off the right way, with poetry, rounded up by our wonderful Linda at TeacherDance!  :0)  Happy Weekending!

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