September is well underway. Harvested golden fields shine out across the landscape. Early morning mists and dew fall on cobwebs like glistening jewels.
Bird song has changed – the robin and the blue-tit seem to sing a different tone; or perhaps I’m just noticing them more? An occasional skein of geese fly over our house, with their evocative calls, echoing in the still cool air. And the fruiting process in our garden abounds.
The abundance of summer is gradually drawing to a close – so wonderfully depicted in Keats’ poem:
To Autumn
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-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage trees, And fill all fruits with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With 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’er-brimmed their clammy cells. Verse 1 of 3 John Keats 1819
Rowans are often stripped of their berries by this time of year, but those that remain “glow” against the gradually turning foliage.
And the late flowering Rudbekia shines out in the darkening evening light.
For me autumn flowers bring a sense of hope and promise of the Spring to come, as the days grow short and the earth prepares to “close down” inwardly for winter.
The Artist in Studio Hundy 