Watercolor Wednesday | Bright Blue Weather.

from Saturday morning's walk to the lake with Holly

My dad shared this poem with me last week. It was new to me, but he said he remembered learning it in grade school. He grew up in southern Alabama where the seasons don't change nearly as noticeably as they do here in Atlanta. I'm guessing it must've been hard for those kids to imagine what "bright blue weather" was like when it was still hot (and most likely humid). But he went to college here and those falls might've been his first real taste of what October is all about! (well, bright blue weather and college football!)

October’s Bright Blue Weather

O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather;

When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And Golden-Rod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When Gentians roll their fringes tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields, still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October’s bright blue weather.

O suns and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October’s bright blue weather.

~ Helen Hunt Jackson

 

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