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| Day-close at Merry Mount |
At Day-Close In November
The ten
hours' light is abating,
And a late bird flies across,
Where the pines, like waltzers waiting,
Give their black heads a toss.
Beech leaves, that yellow the noon-time,
Float past like specks in the eye;
I set every tree in my June time,
And now they obscure the sky.
And the children who ramble through here
Conceive that there never has been
A time when no tall trees grew here,
A time when none will be seen.
And a late bird flies across,
Where the pines, like waltzers waiting,
Give their black heads a toss.
Beech leaves, that yellow the noon-time,
Float past like specks in the eye;
I set every tree in my June time,
And now they obscure the sky.
And the children who ramble through here
Conceive that there never has been
A time when no tall trees grew here,
A time when none will be seen.
-Thomas
Hardy (1840-1928)
On Sunday, November 4, 2018 we “fall back”. We are asked to manipulate time by setting
our clocks back an hour. We at Merry
Mount will turn back the clocks, but we also will stop for a moment to ponder
whether we could “make time stand still.”
Sometimes during moments of great awe or profound grief our senses seem
to “stand still” and we feel frozen in time. Otherwise we observe the passing
of time and hopefully embrace change.
One of the great pleasures of watching a sunset is observing that light
and therefore the colors contained in it are subtly changing second by
second. We literally are watching time
change.
In central Ohio, we are blessed to also
experience seasonal change. We are in
the season of “put away”. Since we haven’t yet professionally retired,
we must manage time in order to get things put away before the weather
prohibits us from doing so. During autumn
weekends, we must find time to strip the gardens. We deadhead the zinnias for next year’s
seeds; pull up and/or cut down the remains of corn and okra stalks, bean and
pea vines, and other vegetation that supported the fruit and vegetables that we
consumed and/or “put away” for meals during winter. Work!
Work! There is too little time for recreation.
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| Putting away the garden |
For another perspective on “Watching the Gardens
Go To Sleep”, I refer you to Gene Logsdon:
Perhaps as we “fall back” and hurry to “put
away” we should stop and ponder the words of Wendell Berry:
The Real
Work
It may
be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
- Wendell Berry
CPW
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