Saturday, September 8, 2007

Feeling like fall


The morning temperatures are finally starting to give a hint of fall. The mornings are cool enough now and not so humid. The sycamores are the first to show that fall is coming. Their plate sized leaves start turning brown. In this part of the South, we don't see many fall colors but by around early November on into December, the red maples and other deciduous trees will show some color.

Although I miss the fall colors from Virginia, I'll settle for the nearly abandoned beaches here when fall comes. Most of the tourists leave, and I can walk the beach without seeing many people. There are parking places in town. The waterways aren't so busy once the weather cools down. It's my favorite time of year.

The poignant Poem in October by Dylan Thomas is one that evokes the feelings that I have for this time of year. I first read it when I was much younger and remember the haunted beauty of it to this day. Dylan Thomas was an active alcoholic, but when he wrote this poem, he surely must have been in touch with life, beauty and inspired by his Higher Power. There is a hopefulness in what he writes, and the promise of a new day.

Poem In October

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels

And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.

And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

Dylan Thomas

5 comments:

  1. Hey Tab, my email is sydlaughs@att.net. I would like to keep in touch so if you want to add me to the people who can view your new blog, please do so. Thanks for your encouragement.

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  2. One of the things on my "do before I die" list...is to see what a real Fall looks like. I've never seen the leaves change colors before. It's my favorite thing to look at on calendars.

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  3. You're too cool. Enjoy these days.

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  4. Nice poem. thanks for sharing it. Autumn is my favorite time too as it happens. Hope you had a good weekend on the boat.

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  5. I love this post.Thanks for sharing.
    I got your email..invite on the way!

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