Sunday, November 6th, 2011

The skies are a brilliant blue and against their depth the trees who have not yet cast their golden leaves are burnished by the fugitive sunlight.  The rest of them have dropped their glowing funeral gowns and raise naked arms into the November air.  

Nights are chilly and I pull a warm woolen blanket over the pots of geraniums that

 hug the house for warmth.

"This is the treacherous month when autumn days

with summer's voice come bearing summer's gifts.

Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts

her head and blooms again.  The soft, warm haze

makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,

and, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,

The violet returns........"

Helen Hunt Jackson, Autumn Sonnet  an excerpt


Friday afternoon I made a quick trip to the garden on the hill, looking for the remnants of the rust and wine chrysanthemums that linger long into November.  Across the path I saw a valiant poppy, brave against the night frosts and crumpled crimson with defiance.  Two more fat round buds lay nestled in the fresh greenery of second growth.  


I brought the poppy home and took it to the church today for Remembrance Sunday.