“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all”
Forget the Gregorian calendar. For as long as I can remember it’s the first of September that heralds the new year on my calendar. The fall harvest ripening into hearty soups and long-simmering stews, festivals for writing and films with premiers of new novels and movies, dahlias in russet and gold, magazines thick with fashions for the fall season, the ideal time to travel to so many places, sweaters…
September—the exhilaration of the new school year, as a kid and when I was teaching.
Remember the Bliss Carmen poem we memorized in school?
There is something in the Autumn that is native to my blood
Touch of manner, hint of mood
And my heart is like a rhyme
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
…hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined Future
Summer
Sighs into fall: …
The light can breathe with
Pleasure…
No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnal face
Autumn harvest dressed in crimson
Plumping the cob, kernels of sweetness
Autumn quietly deepens—a bridge to mellow thoughts
To soak in the noon sun, and fly
Carefree
Let the eye enlarge
with all it beholds
September, the new year of travel in our golden jubilado years while “backing into a sunset”
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower
Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall
Happy New Year!
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Update: Langer, Emily. “Linda Pastan, poet of concentrated beauty, dies at 90.” Washington Post, February 1, 2023.
Bloch, Chana: “hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined Future”
Camus, Albert. “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower”
Donne, John. “No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace/As I have seen in one Autumnal face”
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall”
Horowitz, Stanley. “Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all”
Orr, David.“Summer/Sighs into fall: …/The light can breathe with/Pleasure…” and “To soak in the noon sun, and fly/Carefree”
Pastan, Linda. “Let the eye enlarge/with all it beholds”
Rice, Bruce.“…backing into a sunset”
16 Responses
There is a Gaelic blessing / good will wish that comes to mind with woodsmoke drifting through the spruce trees in “Lakeland” Saskatchewan, where we are this fall weekend ..It is “Lang may your lum reek” . it translates roughly “may you hearth reek of wood and coal smoke and ashes for a long long time (implying that you should live to a ripe old age).. A warming sentiment on a crisp fall day..
Cead Mike Failte to you.
Gloria , what a beautiful post , beautiful pictures and fantastic selection of quotes .Thank you so much
Here’s another quote I love from Tim Kreider in The New York Times in August 29, 2015: “I suspect that the way I feel now, at summer’s end, is about how I’ll feel at the end of my life, assuming I have time and mind enough to reflect: bewildered by how unexpectedly everything turned out, regretful about all the things I didn’t get around to, clutching the handful of friends and funny stories I’ve amassed, and wondering where it all went.”
Autumn always a blast of new energy and packing away the white linen.
A cool blast!
Loved the photos.Hope all is well for your Mom.
On photos: Remember Perspectives’opening party—you were so young!
You have changed my feelings toward autumn as I am always sad when summer ends. But loved this quote “Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all”.
Thanks for the uplift!
Blog therapy, for free.
absolutely lovely! XO
For a proper toast to the New Year, head to The Diamond on Powell Street for a Smoke ‘n Mirrors cocktail as we did last week for Magellan’s birthday.
Awesome pictures and many a memory from the “Way back Machine”
Fall is indeed upon us, Mother Nature’s palette is exploding into visions only she can provide, a Harvest for the eyes, so to speak.
“Happy Trails to all”
The Bard of Torch River you are Barry, love your poetic response. TY.
How beautiful. Autumn has always been my favourite time of the year.
Thank you Spice.
Mine too, obviously. And we get to see the prairies in autumn this year.