Tag: Autumn

Under the October Twilight: More Fall Poetry

On By Tim ValentinoIn GeneralLeave a comment

Late October
By Maya Angelou

Only lovers
see the fall
a signal end to endings
a gruffish gesture alerting
those who will not be alarmed
that we begin to stop
in order to begin
again.

The Beautiful Changes
By Richard Wilbur

One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides  
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you  
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.
The beautiful changes as a forest is changed  
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;  
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves  
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.
Your hands hold roses always in a way that says  
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes  
In such kind ways,  
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose  
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.

The Wild Swans at Coole
By William Butler Yeats

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings…
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake’s edge or pool
Delight men’s eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

Theme in Yellow
By Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o’-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

Mums, the Word, Etc.

On By Tim ValentinoIn GeneralLeave a comment

1. The zinnias did great this year, but the petunias were a bust. I’m still not sure what happened to them. The front yard rose bush is doing well, but the one in the back was devoured by rabbits. All in all, it was a good year for flowers, with some room for improvement next year. And now it’s time for the mums to shine, as “Lovely Fall” is in full swing.

2. I got to see a fine stage production of Pride and Prejudice Sunday afternoon at DeSales University. Jane Austen was a master of her craft and way ahead of her time. Moreover, Darcy and I are INTJs, so I understand him well. Alas, poor Lizzie has to wait for her happy ending until he figures things out. But once he does—wow, the romance sizzles. Lizzie, of course, contributes to the delay because of her stubbornness, but all’s well that ends well. (Wait, that’s another author!)

3. After the show I had dinner at the Braveheart Highland Pub in Hellertown. The food (classic Scottish fare and other selections) was outstanding, and the atmosphere is delightful. It was my third time there, and I’ve never been disappointed.

4. Yesterday my daughter began work as my own personal assistant and one of the caregivers for my mother-in-law. We had fun together and got some things accomplished. She’s extremely capable in so many areas, and she’s excellent with her grandmother. This arrangement will allow her to be a stay-at-home mom when the time comes and still earn an income. I am blessed.

5. Our World Communion Sunday service was well attended and deeply meaningful. There’s something powerful about the entire congregation declaring in unison after the fraction of the host, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Yes, indeed, these are “the gifts of God for the people of God.” So, eat up!

6. Another weekend highlight was reconnecting (by Zoom) with college friends who had gathered in Morgantown, WV for a CRU reunion and a college football game. These were the folks who had first shared the gospel with me and discipled me into the Christian faith many years ago. (It’s hard for us to get away while caring for my mother-in-law, so we were grateful that a brief Zoom option was made available.) I was surprised at how emotional I got just seeing the whole group together. As Michael W. Smith used to sing, “Friends are friends forever if the Lord’s the Lord of them.” 

Enjoy this lovely fall week!

More Fall Poetry

On By Tim ValentinoIn GeneralLeave a comment

Leaves turning,
Wood burning;
Temps dropping,
Mums popping;
Cider boiling,
Farmers toiling;
Colors bursting,
Soul thirsting,
Breathe.
And welcome to lovely fall.

– TRV

First Fall
By Maggie Smith

I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark
morning streets, I point and name.
Look, the sycamores, their mottled,
paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves
rusting and crisping at the edges.
I walk through Schiller Park with you
on my chest. Stars smolder well
into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,
the dogs paddling after their prized sticks.
Fall is when the only things you know
because I’ve named them
begin to end. Soon I’ll have another
season to offer you: frost soft
on the window and a porthole
sighed there, ice sleeving the bare
gray branches. The first time you see
something die, you won’t know it might
come back. I’m desperate for you
to love the world because I brought you here.

Sonnet 73
By William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

L to R: From Shakespeare’s “yellow leaves” to “the glowing of such fire.”

A Million Dreams Are Keeping Me Awake

On By Tim ValentinoIn GeneralLeave a comment

Just a little bit of this and that as I take a brief break from the books.

1. Fall is magical. As Khalil Gibran has said, “Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.” In a similar vein, Ralph Waldo Emerson has said, “The earth laughs in flowers.” (See what I did there? Vein…) 🙂  Anyway, the crisp colors and beauty of this season always refresh my soul.

2. Speaking of laughter, six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15-100 times a day. Be six again. (O.k., feel free to accuse me of being silly—but only after you read Proverbs 17:22. Life is too short to be curmudgeonly all the time.)

3. Martin Niemöller’s robe and preaching collar are now the property of the seminary where I work. I hope to do a short post on that in the near future. Niemöller is not really a household name, but he should be. (“They came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew….”) See, I can be un-silly, too.

4. “I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.” So said C. S. Lewis. Amen to that! Which books do you find yourself re-reading? Oh, you don’t read? As the adage goes (often misattributed to Mark Twain), “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t.”

5. The Phillies are just two games back. Why do they always get close enough to give us hope but linger far enough behind to break our hearts? Fortunately, it doesn’t sting as much as it used to. While I thoroughly enjoy the game of baseball, I’m no longer a fan of professional sports.

6. On a happier note, SamJam (Samuel James) is just two months away from coming into view. I suppose I’ll be more of a puddle than usual this Christmas, getting to hold a newborn and all. This little guy is just the third blood relative I will have gotten to meet on the planet. What an honor!

7. Speaking of Christmas, I probably won’t be able to write too many original posts this year on the Incarnation—one of the richest, deepest, most profound subjects we could ever ponder. So, I’m thinking of doing some re-posts of the more popular ones I’ve done over the past few years. Since that almost feels like cheating, I’m hoping to write at least one original post this year. 

8. My Advent series this year will focus on the history and theology of the carol “O Holy Night.” I did my own translation of it several years ago and discovered that the English version is way off the original French. Nevertheless, the lyrics are still poignant, and the tune is hauntingly beautiful. My favorite line is, “Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.” This concept is the next unit for two of the seven classes I’m teaching this semester. The Scripture pulsates with the sentiment, though we often try to obscure it. As Karen Salmansohn put it, “When you realize how much you’re worth, you’ll stop giving people discounts.”

9. Finally, here are two songs for your weekend pleasure. The first is Disturb’s cover of “The Sound of Silence,” a song about incommunicability. It’s really a lament about individuals who are physically close to each other but still separated by their inability to communicate. They speak without expressing any substantive content, and they hear without really listening. The realm of silence, into which the noisy nothings of this world often crash, is painful to the author.

The second song is much brighter. It’s the One Voice Children’s Choir performing “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman. I love this group of young people, and I find the musical itself quite entertaining. In fact, my son and I have talked about doing a Friday night sing-along of the whole show. (All recording devices will be confiscated before we push play on the DVD!)

Thanks for reading. And have a lovely weekend!

P.S., Hurricane “Sam” is headed to the East Coast. Yeah, we knew that. (See #6 above.) 🙂