I appreciate how the first three lines of Mary Jo Salter’s poem speak of the difficulty I have staying in the moment,especially 80 degree September days. Somehow the heat makes anticipating cold winter days even more onerous.
While appreciating the change of seasons, I feel a little melancholy tonight. The temperature is dropping and it is dark at 7:00.
Are you able to stay in the moment when the seasons change?
According to my Tai Chi instructor Ruth Kneile, there is season between summer and autumn and then another season between autumn and winter; the in-betweens are represented by the bear. Picture a room full of bears approaching dangerous intersections. Oh the fun of Animal Frolics!
Let me know how you handle dangerous intersections and season changes. Reply to this email or go to blog: www.nickymendenhall.blogspot.com and leave a comment.
How hard it is to take September
straight–not as a harbinger
of something harder.
Merely like suds in the air, cool scent
scrubbed clean of meaning–or innocent
of the cold thing coldly meant.
How hard the heart tugs at the end
of summer, and longs to haul it in
when it flies out of hand
at the prompting of the first mile breeze
It leaves us by degrees
only, but for one who sees
summer as an absolute.
Pure State of Light and Heat, the height
to which one cannot raise a doubt,
as soon as one leaf’s off the tree
no day following can fall free
of the drift of melancholy.
*Found this poem on Brain Croft’s, “Barnstorming: Finding Sanctuary in the Seasons of Rural Life”. This is a blog I recently stumbled on and would recommend if you enjoy good photography and poetry.
Thanks for enjoying the mystery – Nicky Mendenhall