"I think I need to find a pair of jeans," Chuck mumbled. "It’s not THAT cold!" I countered. "Mosquitoes! They haven’t gone away yet! They’ll eat me alive!" he advised as he dug through shorts and tee shirts looking for long pants. Today is the first day in the year that we go gleefully diving for sweatshirts and long pants because … it’s cool! For a little while in the morning, before the sun bakes the fog off, we have a hint of autumn. Keats described autumn as "Season of Mists and mellow fruitfulness." I wrote a poem about autumn once and actually won a prize. We’re supposed to write about what we know, but I don’t have colorful leaves, or mists, or mellow fruitfulness… you see, we south Florida flowers have no autumn, no leaves falling (orange falling inspire poets to talk about the end of life as in "Margaret are you grieving over golden grove unleaving?" (Hopkins) or "It was my thirtieth Year to heaven / stood there then in the summer noon / Though the town below lay leaved with October blood. / O may my heart’s truth / Still be sung / On this high hill in a year’s turning." In "Poem in October" Dylan Thomas mused over the view of his "unleaving" town that reminded him of the "autumn" of life. This is one day in the year when a northern cold front pushes in and actually gets here… this is one day when a morning begins crisp and cool. My neighbor mows the too long grass in shorts, and I champ at the bit to get out to pull weeds and mow too, and Chuck is sent to his shed that needs clean up after two years of neglect. Here we come mosquitoes! We’ll be wearing deet. Look elsewhere for someone to chomp on! Happy autumn dear friends and family!
Categories