Friday 14 September 2012

Day 84: Fall



Autumn is a great season for writers and artists alike. But I can't say I'm such a fan! Well, I do love the falling leaves and the colours, but not the absence of light, (I'm a spring girl myself!). It's hard to get accustomed to.

Maybe what I find hardest is the change in seasons. And the worst change has to be from summer into autumn/winter. It's the first few weeks of trying to adapt that is the toughest. 

How appropriate the American term for the season - Fall. A lot of 'falling.' But as Rilke reminds us, 'Someone' is 'holding up all this falling.'  

Here's a different autumn poem from all the other waxing descriptive ones you may know.


Autumn - Rainer Maria Rilke 

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.


2 comments:

  1. THanks for this one--it does give a little different slant. I have noticed that my reaction or feeling about autumn has changed since moving to Ireland. Before, I longed, ached, couldn't wait for autumn (or fall) to give us relief from the oppressive summer heat. But here, it's so sublte how the season shifts gently into longer days, yellowed leaves, trees beginning to be naked and the cooler air. I don't welcome it like I did in Oklahoma--all it means here is less leaves on the trees. :-( So it's nice to be reminded of the hands of 'Someone' that infinitely calm.

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  2. Thanks Mary. Yes, it is very subtle isn't it - and seems in recent years, there's like 2 weeks of autumn and then straight into winter...

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