If these seasonal posts prove anything, it’s that I have a penchant for poetry.
For others’ poetry, I’m saying. Oh, I’ve dabbled in the art. Even written a scant handful of poems I like, and a couple I’m actually proud of.
But I’m a blatherer. When I write, it’s at length. I pack my sentences with inessential words. I even add unnecessary sentences — like this one — just for fun. I love words (I know hundreds of them!), but I’m well content to simply shuffle them around a page and see if I can’t weave a tale with them. To craft them into a form where every syllable sings, every word trips off the tongue, every phrase echoes in the heart, and every verse rings true … I leave that to those more gifted. And I take pleasure in sharing their work.
I spent some time basking in that pleasure last September, when I posted Autumn Leaves #3. Indeed, I was still in basking mode a week later, when my sister Liane came over for dinner.
Sipping tea after the meal and chatting, as we are wont to do, we commiserated about how tough this autumn has been on so many and in so many ways. That’s when my sis — an extraordinarily compassionate being and a bereavement counselor at Sutter Hospice to boot — brought out this email she’d recently sent to the entire Hospice team.
It was three autumnal poems.
Apparently she sends a similar email to the team — encouraging quotes and great poetry — a few times a month.
I was dumbfounded. My sister and I are opposites in almost every way. We often say, only semi in jest, that we’re really one soul that for some reason decided to split up for a lifetime and experience the earthly plane as sisters. So it seemed a bit astonishing to me that the two of us independently came up with the exact same sending-out-wise-words ritual.
Liane didn’t think it odd at all. Of course, she said. Mom loved poetry. We grew up on it.
Which brings me to Samhain.
Was a time this most magical of Sabbats inspired me to connect with the more occult and arcane aspects of the season. At its core, though, the divination and bonfires, the lanterns and ghost tales … it all comes down to clan. To the gift of sharing our time on this planet with our friends and family who are living, to the complex legacy left us by our friends and family who are dead, and the joy of celebrating Summer’s End with them both.
This poem by was among the three in my sister’s email. May it ring true for you.
A Ballade of Autumn
Life is passing slowly,
Death is drawing near,
Life and death are holy,
What have we to fear?
Faded leaves are falling,
Birds are on the wing,
All that dies in autumn
Lives again in Spring.
– Mary E. Coleridge
Lovely poem. And indeed a fine time of the year, mostly. I think I wish it away too soon. But then, in Ireland, the Autumn into Winter transition, and then into Spring, can sometimes take about 3 years… or so it feels!
Ah, but for me, this time of year IS Ireland. I arrived in Larne/Belfast late October, spent Samhain in Donegal, hitched widdershins around the country the rest of the month, made it to Tal y Bont, Wales for Midwinter. November Ireland is all I know.
Yes, I’ve been told — I must get back for the Irish spring someday. It’s on the bucket list.
Gorgeous photos of the season, and I adore that picture of you, Liane, and the kiddies. Strong bonds there! This Samhain, as you know, I have a special goodbye to say. Thank you for ushering in the holy day with such lovely words and images. It will make the weight of my task much lighter to bear . . .
Yes, m’dear, I was thinking about you — and the guy who commented shortly after you — especially when I wrote this. And thanks for the photo praise! Mama Nature was being SO cooperative! The pics basically form a cross-quartered circle around our house! View out the window is nor’east. Berry (hawthorn?) and evergreen (?) are sou’east and nor’west respectively. And the sunset (duh) is sou’west (because the sun is in serious retreat). <3