Last day of August....

 EMILY DICKINSON's poem about the passing of summer........

 As Imperceptibly as Grief

 The Summer lapsed away

 Too imperceptible at last to seem like perfidy.

 A Quietness distilled

 As twilight long begun

Sequestered Afternoons

The Dusk drew earlier in

 The Morning foreign shone

 A courteous, yet harrowing Grace

 A Guest that would be gone

 And thus, without a Wing

 Or service of a Keel
                                
 Our Summer made her light escape......

 Into the Beautiful.............................

Smokey 2017

Emily Dickinson (1839-1886) Only a few of her poems were poems published during her lifetime. After her death, her sister, Lavinia found Emily's  1800 poems and they were published.( This poem "As Imperceptibly as Grief" was written in 1865 and published in 1891)

Smokey 2017

 Photographs 2019 and 2017 and 2016 Summers

All roads....

"The Road now leads onward, as far as can be, winding lanes and hedgerows in threes...." -Loreena McKennitt

 All roads are leading into fall..... right on the heels of summer, which has ended hot and smokey.

 And with it,  the arrival of Stellar Jays. They meet  and greet with such enthusiasm. They are so smart. They KNOW i have peanuts for them.

  Squawk and talk. Talk and squawk.

 Neighbourhood cats watch them. Longing with every whisker twitch.

 "By purple mountains and round every bend, all roads lead to you, There is no journey's end." - Loreena McKennitt

 Last of the flowers. Hibiscus and  Roses. Soaked in what little rain we get.

 And in the morning, the skies turn silver when dawn finally breaks. Which is later and later and later....

 And the Stellar Jays stuff themeselves silly. They screech for more peanuts.I find they waylay me as I come around the corner from the greenhouse. Peanuts! 

 More. More. More.

 "Here is my heart, I give it to you. take me with you across this land. These are my dreams, so simple so few. Dreams we hold in the palm of our hands." - Loreena McKennitt

 Some leaves have fallen. But only some.

Cats, like Smokey,  peer into the house, in the silver morning.

Days are shorter. Hibiscus droops and dies. Like the Roses. Almost all gone.

 "Deep in the winter, amidst falling snow, high in the air where the bells they all toll." -Loreena McKennitt

 Bees and wasps govern  now. Wasps more than bees. They grow drunk on late sunlight.And roll around in clover.

Time to tear down falling sunflowers, prune, hack and slash .A daunting mess.

 Leave bare ground. Empty canvas for next year. Note to self: Next year, no more flopping sunflowers on the hill. 

 "It now leads onward I know not where. I feel in my heart that you will be there......" -Loreena McKennitt

 There are those who sit. All day. 

 The Jays watch the cats, watching them. Demand. Demand.

 Last of the roses  freeze in the night. Because frost shows no favourites.

 "Show aid may horsh um flee shum bug.Drams atta ga nay danamar la wa....." (Gaelic) - Loreena McKennitt
Translation: These are my dreams so simple, so few. Dreams we hold in the palm of our hand.

Song excerpts from Loreena McKennitt's "Never Ending Road" (Amhran Duit).....One of my fav  McKennitt songs ever.....

Lines Written....

 from "Lines Written a few Miles above Tintern Abbey" 
                                     (William Wordsworth 1770-1850)
"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."

 For I have learned:

 to look on nature, not as in the hour

 of thoughtless youth, but hearing often-times the still,

 sad music of humanity,

 NOR the harsh NOR grating, though of ample power

 To chasten and subdue.

 And I have felt a PRESENCE that disturbs me with the JOY

 Of elongated thoughts; a sense of sublime

 of SOMETHING far more deeply interfused,

 Whose dwelling is the LIGHT of the setting suns,

 And the round ocean and the living air,

 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;

 A motion and a SPIRIT that impels

 All thinking things,all objects of ALL thought,

 And rolls through all things. Therefore, am I STILL

 A lover of the meadows and the woods and mountains; 

 and of ALL that we BEHOLD from this green earth.

From "1000 Beautiful Things 1948"