Poetry Sunday

Summer is definitely over, and we're moving through the cold and rainy days of fall toward the cold and (hopefully not-too) snowy days of winter. On these days, when darkness later and later grudgingly gives way to the day and eagerly arrives earlier and earlier in the evening, we often sit down and remember the warm and comforting days of summer, as W.S. Merwin does in this short poem ...

Remembering Summer 

by W. S. Merwin 

Being too warm the old lady said to me
is better than being too cold I think now
in between is the best because you never
give it a thought but it goes by too fast
I remember the winter how cold it got
I could never get warm wherever I was
but I don’t remember the summer heat like that
only the long days the breathing of the trees
the evenings with the hens still talking in the lane
and the light getting longer in the valley
the sound of a bell from down there somewhere
I can sit here now still listening to it


I remember how, many years ago, we would stand in the back yard of the old homestead back in Pittsburgh, warm and happy, and listen to the local church bells chiming out the Angelus, while Dad would tell us that "God made the summertime just for me."

Have a good day. Winter is coming*, but summer will be back. I'll be ready.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Eddard Stark was right.