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Life on the Deckle Edge

Poetry Friday - September Snippets from The Illuminated Book of Days

 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  

First - my heart breaks and prays for so many in the throes of fires and floods this week. And so many other challenges. Hopes for healing, rebuilding, peace. 

--

Here in the Lowcountry, we have had just the faintest hint of a breeze foreshadowing Fall - well, between the rain bands on the outer edges of Sally.  Cooler temps are promised for the next week or so.

 

I have a book I love to turn to with the turning of the seasons. I've shared excerpts from it before... and I think some of you have it, too? The Illuminated Book of Days, edited by Kay and Marshall Lee, with illustrations by (sigh) Kate Greenaway and Eugene Grasset (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1979).

 

It's lovely, fun, and nostalgic, with tidbits of poetry and lore and historical gems for each month. 

 

Here are a few lines and verses featured in its September pages:

 

 

   September blow soft

   Till the fruit's in the loft.

 

 

*********

 

 

         There is harmony 

In Autumn, and a lustre in its sky,

Which thro' the Summer is not heard or seen.

 

                                   Shelley

 

*********

 

 

Fruit gathered too timely will taste of the wood,

   will shrink and be bitter, and seldom prove good.

So fruit that is shaken, or beat off a tree,

   with bruising and falling, soon faultie will be. 

 

 

*********

 

And,  my favorite...

 

 

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,

Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.


                                        Shelley

 

***

 

Now, follow those falling leaves over to Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme, where Matt has a pile of poems to jump in for this week's Roundup.  Thanks for hosting, Matt!

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