A Late September Walk - September 17, 2019 Journal Entry
I needed perspective. And Queen Anne’s Lace giving way to Goldenrod, but not before they curl up browning shaking their fist at the waning sun. A few short ones remain by the Clover that have learned to grow low from frequent mowings. Mowers train things to think they can only grow so high. Dandelions grow taller on fields not mown. Did you know that? I wonder how long it takes to grow again. If you’re allowed. Freedom takes time to make its effect.
And I needed the effect of Aster and apples ‘bruised and spiked with stubble’ and little girls picking little flowers and the cat calls of Chickadees and pretty things floating and Crickets and Clouded Sulphers on Hickory leaves and the yellow-tipped Soybean fields. And going in and coming out and back in and then out and keeping it in even when I’m out.
I’ve got rocks in my shoe. And acorns in my pocket. And yellow berries we don’t know the name of. But we’re going to find out. But first I need that poem...
A Late Walk, by Robert Frost
When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.
- September 17, 2019
