Wednesday, October 14, 2020

 

Echinacea purpurea - 14 October 2020

While a day of sun in our fall Vancouver may cheer me up a tad I cannot think but by the Indigenous Canadian idea (and in many other countries, too) that in the fall we reflect on the concept of surviving one more winter to live for a spring day. When you are 78 like me, thinking perhaps that my Rosemary might be a widow soon I get satisfaction in enjoying the colours of our hosta leaves as they fade and decay into that temporary oblivion of all perennials. I also love the look of flowers like in these Echinacea that are definitely past their prime but somehow surprise me with a sober elegance as they bid me goodbye.

 

And Emily Dickinson gets the idea of missing somebody in the fall. I tell Rosemary every day if we will be alive to travel when we can travel. I miss my Argentine family and the sweltering heat (I love heat) of our favourite Mérida in Yucatán. Will all that happen? The doubt in Dickinson’s poem feels right.

 

If you were coming in the Fall,

I'd brush the Summer by

With half a smile, and half a spurn,

As Housewives do, a Fly.

 

If I could see you in a year,

I'd wind the months in balls---

And put them each in separate Drawers,

For fear the numbers fuse---

 

If only Centuries, delayed,

I'd count them on my Hand,

Subtracting, til my fingers dropped

Into Van Dieman's Land,

 

If certain, when this life was out---

That yours and mine, should be

I'd toss it yonder, like a Rind,

And take Eternity---

 

But, now, uncertain of the length

Of this, that is between,

It goads me, like the Goblin Bee---

That will not state--- its sting.

 

 More Emily Dickinson
  

Purple Haze 

Yellow she affords 
A sepal, petal and a thorn
Her breast is fit for pearls  
I would not paint a picture
November left then clambered up
You cannot make remembrance grow
November
the maple wears a gayer scarf 
We turn not older with years, but older
Now I am ready to go

 A melancholy of a waning summer
Just as green and as white
It's full as opera
I cannot dance upon my Toes
a door just opened on the street 
Amber slips away
Sleep
When August burning low
Pink Small and punctual
A slash of blue
I cannot dance upon my toes
Ah little rose
For hold them, blue to blue