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A Time to Keep

animals who act like it's Spring

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

~George Eliot

lettuces in the cold frame

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

~John Keats, Ode to Autumn

apple-picking

Every leaf speaks bliss to me,
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

~Emily Bronte

October mornings

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayest rest
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

~William Blake, To Autumn

blue clouds of mist flowers

All-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn,
Led yellow Autumn, wreath’d with nodding corn.

~Robert Burns, Brigs of Ayr

the barnyard raj

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.

~Nathaniel Hawthorne

a new baby (her name is Hetty)

Desperately trying to keep–to fully live–these fleeing hours and days of the year’s tender flourish, mostly by heeding Hawthorne’s advice above. Counting up what I love, what makes my heart glad and makes each day’s beauty so lucid and real.  Opening my eyes to see, not merely look. Catching at the gossamer strands of the poignant season as they fly and weaving my praise in a pattern of wordless joy…

God bless you all in autumn’s gilding as His touch sets the world aflame…

14 Comments

  1. *happy sigh* I love autumn. Thank you for sharing the lovely pictures…and I’m glad you’re enjoying these beautiful days! I hope you’re doing well…

  2. I love these photos, poems and quotes! I’ve been wanting to take Hawthorne’s advice. Autumn sunshine is quite precious – especially with the earlier sunsets. (6:20 around these parts.) Every season has its beauty, but Autumn is my favorite. And this one, in particular, has been the loveliest I can remember.

  3. Fall! The season I wait for all year long. I’ve even grown to (somehow) appreciate a steamy Georgia August because I know it’s the prelude to the crescendo of these glorious autumn days! Even today I took a luxurious 15 minutes to sit outside and do absolutely nothing but close my eyes and listen to the wind rustling through the trees and memorize the feeling of the sun on my face. I’m reminded of the last part of Isaiah 55:12 “and all the trees of the field will clap their hands”. I think they were clapping today – an applause to their Creator! Thank you Lanier for (once again) expressing it so perfectly!

  4. I too have that sense of wanting to be outdoors, not so much doing the things which need to be done [tidying the garden!] as just being there, absorbing all that is so lovely..and so fleeting.

  5. I can’t enter into your experience exactly as it is spring here – but I am definitely appreciating the cool weather before the summer heat, and the green from the spring rain, and the few deciduous trees re-leafing – and the glory of the jacarandas which give Brisbane a purple haze this time of year. And the mangoes will be ripe soon!

  6. I love this post, Lanier! I was born in September and have always considered autumn “my season.” I spend as much time outside as I can, breathing deeply and enjoying the clear evening skies. I need to take an afternoon and weed my flower gardens and plant a few things. 🙂

    1. And I <3 Hetty! She reminds me of the Araucanas that I used to have years ago in my pre-teaching days; one of my hens went broody and hatched three chickies one year…so adorable!!!

  7. Thank you for celebrating my favorite season of the year with your beautiful pictures and quotations.

    I also try to spend all the time possible out in the autumn sunshine. As I live in the Seattle area, any sunshine is precious and to be enjoyed. We Seattle residents drop what we’re doing and go outside to play when the sun is out any time of the year, but even more so when we see the rich antique gold of autumn sunlight.

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