November 20, 2007
Pictures
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but I wouldn’t want to have to say that with a picture. We thought in our town, our southeast, that our severe summer drought settled for once and for all that there’d be no fall colors this year. Especially no herald of maples and gums.
Thanks be to God, we were wrong. Those who know about these things say our late-coming rainy time, even though short, saved the day. Even in this intensely drought-ridden of seasons, the most startling of our middle Tennessee fall landscapes are the bright yellow/orange/crimson maples, especially when a gentle breeze sets their leaves to a flickering palette lit by a morning sun right before your eyes.
We came here years ago in the spring and found rich-blooming azaleas and forsythias and redbuds. Heaven knows that was startling and welcoming enough for anyone. But the fall turns out to be the real winner.
I couldn’t improve on on all this in a thousand words and, you may be pleased to know, don’t intend even to try.
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OON is one of my favorite places! Thank you for it. Here’s a probably familiar poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins about a different kind of drought:
Thou art indeed just, Lord
JUSTUS quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum properatur?
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build–but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
Comment by Glenda — November 21, 2007 @ 2:21 pm