POETRY_FRIDAY

SOME OF OUR FAVORITE POEMS...
WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THEM!

WELCOME - SEPTEMBERThe
Month of September
Poetry, Quotations, Sayings,
Facts, Information, Quips,
Aphorisms, Lore

"The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze."
-   John Updike, September

"But now in September the
garden has cooled, and with
it my possessiveness. The sun
warms my back instead of
beating on my head ... The
harvest has dwindled, and I
have grown apart from the
intense midsummer
relationship that brought
it on."
- Robert Finch

"'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone."
-   Thomas Moore, The Last
Rose of Summer, 1830

Departing summer hath
assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder
leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.
- William Wordsworth,
September



On the Autumnal Equinox,
around September 21st, in
Sacramento, California,
Northern Hemisphere, Earth,
we have around 12 Hours of
Daylight and 12 Hours of
Nighttime.

"Equal dark, equal light
Flow in Circle, deep insight
Blessed Be, Blessed Be
The transformation of
energy!
So it flows, out it goes
Three-fold back it shall be
Blessed Be, Blessed Be
The transformation of
energy!"
-   Night An'Fey,
Transformation of Energy

"Smoke hangs like haze over
harvested fields,
The gold of stubble, the
brown of turned earth
And you walk under the red
light of fall
The scent of fallen apples,
the dust of threshed grain
The sharp, gentle chill of
fall.
Here as we move into the
shadows of autumn
The night that brings the
morning of spring
Come to us, Lord of Harvest
Teach us to be thankful for
the gifts you bring us ..."
- Autumn Equinox Ritual

"Alas, that my heart is a
lute,
Whereon you have learned to
play!
For a many years it was mute,
Until one summer's day
You took it, and touched it,
and made it thrill,
And it thrills and throbs,
and quivers still!"
-   Anne Barnard, My Heart is a
Lute, 1815

"Sorrow and scarlet leaf,
Sad thoughts and sunny
weather.
Ah me, this glory and this
grief
Agree not well together!"
-   Thomas Parsons, 1880, A Song
For September

"Lord, it is time. The summer
was very big. Lay thy shadow
on the sundials, and on the
meadows let the winds go
loose. Command the last
fruits that they shall be
full; give them another two
more southerly days, press
them on to fulfillment and
drive the last sweetness
into the heavenly wine."
-     Rainer Maria Rilke

"Blessed be the Lord for the
beauty of summer and spring,
for the air, the water, the
verdure, and the song of
birds."
-   Carl von Linnaeus

"Try to remember the kind of
September
When life was slow and oh so
mellow
Try to remember the kind of
September
When grass was green and
grain so yellow
Try to remember the kind of
September
When you were a young and a
callow fellow
Try to remember and if you
remember
Then follow--follow, oh-oh."
- Try to Remember, Lyrics by
Tom Jones and Harvey
Schmidt

Mabon: Extensive
Bibliography, Links, Lore,
Poems, Prayers, Preparations,
Crafts, Rituals, Quotes

"Shine on, shine on harvest
moon
Up in the sky,
I ain't had no lovin'
Since January, February, June
or July
Sno Time ain't no time to stay
Outdoors and spoon,
So shine one, shine on
harvest noon
For me and my gal."
- By Nora Bayes and Jack
Norworth, 1903

"September twenty-second,
Sir, the bough cracks with
unpicked apples,
and at dawn the small-mouth
bass breaks water, gorged
with spawn."
-   Robert Lowell

"Summer afternoon - summer
afternoon; to me those have
always
been the two most beautiful
words in the English
language."
- Henry James



"In the garden, Autumn is,
indeed the crowning glory of
the year, bringing us the
fruition of months of
thought and care and toil.
And at no season, safe perhaps
in Daffodil time, do we get
such superb colour effects
as from August to November."
-   Rose G. Kingsley, The
Autumn Garden, 1905

"By all these lovely tokens
September days are here,
With summer’s best of
weather
And autumn’s best of cheer."
-   Helen Hunt Jackson,
September, 1830-1885

"Summer ends now; now,
barbarous in beauty, the
Stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-
walks! what
lovely behavior
Of silk-sack clouds! Has
wilder, willful-waiver
Meal-drift molded ever and
melted across skies?"
-   Gerard Manly Hopkins,
Hurrahing in Harvest, 1918

"The foliage has been losing
its freshness through the
month of August, and here
and there a yellow leaf
shows itself like the first
gray hair amidst the locks
of a beauty who has seen one
season too many."
-   Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Crown'd with the sickle, and
the sheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er
the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on."
-   James Thomson, Autumn, 1730

School,
Effort, and
Play.
Trying your best
Each hour of the day,
Making new friends,
Being good as you can
Exciting discoveries,
Reading books with a friend."
- Boni Fulgham

"Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers."
- Carl Sandburg, Under the
Harvest Moon

"September: it was the most
beautiful of words, he’d
always felt, evoking orange-
flowers, swallows, and
regret."
-   Alexander Theroux, 1981

"Further in Summer than the
Birds
Pathetic from the Grass
A minor Nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass.

No Ordinance be seen
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness."
-   Emily Dickinson

"the air is different today
the wind sings with a new
tone
sighing of changes
coming
the harvest gathered
a flower, a nut
some mead, and bread
a candle and a prayer
returning the fruits
in thanksgiving
to the grove
and receiving
it's blessing
again"
-   Rhawk, Alban Elfed

"Our fear of death is like
our fear that summer will
be short, but when we have
had our swing of pleasure,
our fill of fruit,
and our swelter of heat, we
say we have had our day."
-   John Donne, 1620

"Spring scarce had greener
fields to show than these
Of mid September; through
the still warm noon
The rivulets ripple forth a
gladder tune
Than ever in the summer;
from the trees
Dusk-green, and murmuring
inward melodies,
No leaf drops yet; only our
evenings swoon
In pallid skies more
suddenly, and the moon
Finds motionless white mists
out on the leas."
- Edward Dowden, In September

" 'I grow old, I grow old,' the
garden says. It is nearly
October. The bean leaves
grow paler, now lime, no
yellow, no leprous,
dissolving before my eyes.
The pods curl and do not
grow, turn limp and blacken.
The potato vines wither and
the tubers huddle
underground in their rough
weather-proof jackets,
waiting to be dug. The last
tomatoes ripen and split on
the vine; it takes days for
them to turn fully now, and
a few of the green ones are
beginning to fall off."
-   Robert Finch

"The Druids call this
celebration, Mea'n Fo'mhair,
and honor the Green Man, the
God of the Forest, by
offering libations to trees.
Offerings of ciders, wines,
herbs and fertilizer are
appropriate at this time....
Mabon is considered a time of
the Mysteries. It is a time
to honor Aging Deities and
the Spirit World...."
-   Mabon by Akasha