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It’s late August, the time when leaves have begun to lose their vibrancy. Some are turning, hints of red and yellow.
The shift in daylight, ever so subtle since the summer solstice, renders sunset noticeably earlier. Back-to-school memories kick in. The smell of a new briefcase, crisp lined pages in a black and white composition notebook, freshly sharpened pencils.
One September several years ago had me yearning to be back in the classroom. Sarah Lawrence College was offering a course in prosody. I wanted a poetry refresher, a chance to delve deeper into familiar and unfamiliar poems, analyze the ways in which the rhythm and sound of words in poetic lines enhance a poem’s meaning.
Among the poems we studied was Keats’ ode, “To Autumn.” One morning, looking out my kitchen window at a foggy landscape, the first line of the poem ran through my head in a way I’d never quite understood it before—
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness —
The syntax says it all. Autumn does not dance in the way summer does. It’s a slow-footed season arriving in a confluence of cool and warm air. Misty mornings when the chill indoors has me surprised at how the sun warms me when I head outdoors.
I love the light that autumn brings, an abundance of gold at its fullest measure, even as I rue the shortening days.
