The other day I was reading the blog of a fellow citizen of Penn’s Woods, Walt Franklin of Rivertop Rambles. I’m not a fly fisherman, but watching those guys on slate run years ago, taking a break from hiking the Black Forest trail, well, there was something Zen or maybe Taoist about it, how they seemed not intruders, but participants in the environment of the stream. No wonder everyone loves the Movie “A River Runs Through It.” The scenery alone is enough to bring peace into a man’s heart. And how can you not admire a man with a good name like Walt, right?
Another thing Walt of the Rambling Rivertop and I have in common is a love of birds. He describes so reverently the habits and wild beauty of a green heron, a bird that other fisherman might see as competition. He instead sees the heron as another part of the scene he himself is part of, an integral part. In this particular post Walt brought up one of the things I always love about September and early October, that morning mist that rises off the streams, and hugs the hills of the valleys before it burns off, sometimes as late as nine or ten am. I have often driven through it to a ridge top in hopeful anticipation of a good Broad Wing flight in mid September, or watched it from above as it revealed a green/gold valley below.
It was Keats’ line he used about the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.” It’s from the poem “To Autumn.” And as a treat for you–just indulge me, please–I dug out a reading I did of this on YouTube from October two years ago, complete with the cheesy intro, and my hair sticking up above one ear under my crooked reading glasses. It was recorded on a simple laptop web cam, and for all it’s flaws, and I realize they are many, the reading itself I think went very well. There is a rather nice audio reading of it on the Poetry Foundation website, and I have found a lot more polished presentations of this piece online, but this one Keatsbabe, Suzie Grogan herself endorsed, so it can’t be all bad. As William Stafford once said to live in the realm of poetry, “one must be willingly fallible.”
To Autumn by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease; For summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,- While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river-sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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David J. Bauman 
Gosh…this brings me back…I remember learning this in school !
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I am having a hard time getting the poem to appear correctly on the screen. Grrr. . . html code was not written with poetry in mind. Hopefully Professor David will have this sorted momentarily. Thanks for coming to class this morning, Kristine! xo
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Got it! There is always some typo or technical snafu the moment I hit that “Publish” button. 🙂 Thanks for being here, Kristine!
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I love this, because you responded in that original video too, two years ago! We were so much younger then. 😉
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And one last comment as I should have been in bed hours ago. I just found the best audio reading of this poem online at Poets.org from the Academy of American Poets. Stanley Plumly handles this poem better than all the other YouTube videos I’ve watched. Sorry if any of you are reading this; your voices are lovely, but you rush it. Too many readers of poems rush it. Sometimes I rush, rather than letting the lines hang there for a moment and have the proper effect. Listen to his reading: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15565
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Nice reading of Keats…thanks.
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Thank you!
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Thanks for the kind mention of my Rivertop encounters and for the re-post of your fine reading. Quite a treat to listen to you reading out ‘To Autumn’!
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Thank you, Walt! Always a pleasure doing commerce with you. 🙂
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How joyously
the yellow leaves fly
falling in their newfound freedom
into the spiral of life
and afterlife
singing the wind’s song.
And I, watch their fall
with that same autumn joy.
~~Merrill Ann Gonzales
…funny how poetry begets poetry. Thanks for the Keats… it brought these words out into print… falling in their newfound freedom into the spiral of life….and afterlife….
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I like that. Thank you. 🙂
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Well you know what I think!! Thank goodness for this video. I might never have known you were there if you hadn’t made it 🙂
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Aw, shucks. I’m glad too! Next to get your book promotion up here! That’s my next post. Stay tuned.
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Keats does have his moments…
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He certainly does. 🙂
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Love Keats, too…
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l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
l
iness
—e e cummings
Unenunciatable poetry can also be quite lovely, and expressive of the season.
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Always loved that little Poem by Cummings!
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How strange. It says that I posted this a month ago, but I don’t remember having done it. I don’t remember it so intensely that I’m pretty sure I didn’t. Now I’m completely freaked out. Hope you’re feeling more settled than I am. ❤
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One month anf TWO YEARS ago. Lol Sorry, this post got some hits yesterday and I was reminiscing, so I liked your 25-month-old comment.
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Did not look at the year. Sigh of relief. Thank you for that. I’m not losing my mind after all. Though I find it strange that wordpress put the new picture with the old screen name.
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Oh, yeah, interesting. Same email? Different gravitar account or no?
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Same email, yes. Not sure about gravitar. Maybe my break with Angry Ricky wasn’t as clean as I intended.
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