Beach Houses, Big Sky

Although it’s still summer, the first of September feels like a turning of the year, a return to school and schedules, and a farewell to cicadas and the least possible clothing. In parting I celebrate the day with a watercolor of Duck, NC, where the family just spent an idyllic week, and, attesting to the season’s ambivalence, a poem by A.E. Housman.

BeachHousesBigSky

XXXIX (from Last Poems)

When summer’s end is nighing
And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
And all the feats I vowed
When I was young and proud.

The weathercock at sunset
Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
That looked to Wales away
And saw the last of day.

From hill and cloud and heaven
The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
And hushed the countryside,
But I had youth and pride.

And I with earth and nightfall
In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
And darkness hard at hand,
And the eye lost the land.

The year might age, and cloudy
The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
Breathed from beyond the snows,
And I had hope of those.

They came and were and are not
And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
That ever can ensue
Must now be worse and few.

So here’s an end of roaming
On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
For summer’s parting sighs,
And then the heart replies.

—A.E. Housman

CakeBerries2

Elizabeth

Julep Season

A poem by Jack Peachum in celebration of a summer classic. Better stock up, as we head further into this election season. Here’s a recipe from Epicurious that includes as an ingredient a homemade mint syrup which can be used in other drinks as well.

Aug2016

But, surely, the tree in Eden was a giant mint plant,
promising knowledge profane and sacred,
the doorways of Eternity opening—
summer air pushes heavy around the house,
ice clicks in the teeth,
the mixture’s smell invites you in
to where the mint lies on the tongue.
And in the distance,
bourbon-taste and sugar against the palette
sweet as remembered Sunday mornings.

— Jack Peachum

CakeBlackEyeSusan

Francine

Journey’s End

For the first of July, a painting and a poem.

HibiscusChateau

In western lands beneath the Sun
The flowers may rise in Spring,
The trees may bud, the waters run,
The merry finches sing.
Or there may be ‘tis cloudless night,
And swaying branches bear
The Elven-stars as jewels white
Amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey’s end I lie
In darkness buried deep,
Beyond all towers strong and high,
Beyond all mountains steep,
Above all shadows rides the Sun
And Stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
Nor bid the Stars farewell.

—J R R Tolkien

Solstice Moon

Don your leafy crown and pagan garb and prepare to dance ’round the bonfire, for (in the Northern Hemisphere) ’tis the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, a time to celebrate our warming sun, our greening earth, and fertility in all its forms. And this shortest night is graced by a full moon, an unusual conjunction of events. Reason enough for dancing!

Solstice

Yahrzeit2

Don 2006