Monday 1 November 2010

Season of mi....


I can hear you, with your, 'Enough already!' But, until someone writes anything more descriptive of all that is beautiful about autumn than Keats, I'm sticking with him.
His poem describes today perfectly; the sun shines through a mist that veils the middle distance and knocks the far distance into cloud colours. There is barely a breeze. In the woods an occasional leaf flutters slowly towards the ground. Shafts of sunlight between the tree trunks resemble the imagery that is found in religious paintings. The leaf colour is splendid. A gentle day, I love autumn when it is kind like this.


I enjoy quiet pleasures, paintings that are intimate, not grandiose, music in a minor key, autumn's falling note. I had quite a crush on Keats when I was a schoolgirl, his palely loitering knight informed me that females could be powerful, quite an important lesson, coming from a family where my elder brother was the young pretender, oh,so clever, oh,so good. And when he was bad, considered merely funny, when cruel, 'only teasing'. 
Oh, knight, where were you? 


For Tom, whose wit is not in doubt, but whose Japanese I am unsure of, a translation of the haiku by Takahama Kyoshi that I left on his comments page. 

He says a word
and I say a word - autumn
is deepening.

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