Saturday, August 28, 2010
The Seasons: Summer 2010
Waning Days of August
Summer's parting kick -- the heat wave, when it finally came, was not pleasant. For a few days, the heat was oppressive; the usual cool breeze noticeably absent during the evenings. Now the sense that the onset of autumn is creeping up is inescapable. Days are getting shorter. Labor Day is around the corner; schools have re-opened.
Two from The New Yorker
Two from The New Yorker
A piercing blue sky, gentle ocean breeze, low humidity, clean air. But what Seamus Heaney has called "the ache of summer" is increasingly palpable. Darkness will clamp down earlier and more suddenly this evening--one moment a rich, haunting Maxfield Parrish blue, the next pitch-black and night. Hard to face, but wouldn't you know, summer is ending and it is time for memories...Night is falling. There is a chill in the air. Winter will come. And go.
Philip Hamburger © The New Yorker
End of Summer
Just an uncommon lull in the traffic
so you hear some guy in an apron, sleeves rolled up,
with his brusque sweep brusque sweep of the sidewalk,
and the slap shut of a too thin rental van,
and I told him no a gust has snatched from a conversation
and brought to you, loud.
if any of these were missing is the feeling
you always have on the first day of autumn,
no, the first day you think of autumn, when somehow
the sun singling out high windows,
a waiter settling a billow of white cloth
with glasses and silver, and the sparrows
shattering to nowhere are the Summer
waving that here is where it turns
and will no longer be walking with you,
traveller, who now leave all of this behind,
carrying only what it has made of you.
Already the crowds seem darker and more hurried
and the slang grows stranger and stranger,
and you do not understand what you love,
yet here, rounding a corner in mild sunset,
is the world again, wide-eyed as a child
holding up a toy even you can fix.
down the narrowing avenue to the cross streets,
October, small November, barely legible December.
--James Richardson © The New Yorker
Pajaro Dunes
The annual gathering on the coast took place in mid-August. As usual, it was not always sunny at Pajaro Dunes.One day, the sun never came up but that didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves.
