Tuesday, Election Day, was gloriously sunny here in Berkeley. Wednesday it rained. Thursday, today, it's simply cold. It's so strange to see the pathetic fallacy at work in regular life.
Anyway, today I was thinking of Hecht, and this one out of 1977's Millions of Strange Shadows:
An Autumnal
The lichens, like a gorgeous, soft disease
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTIn rust and gold rosette
Emboss the bouldered wall, and creepers seize
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTIn their cup-footed fret,
Ravelled and bare, such purchase as affords.
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTThe sap-tide slides to ebb,
And leafstems, like the drumsticks of small birds,
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTLie snagged in a spiderweb.
Down at the stonework base, among the stump-
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTFungus and feather moss,
Dead leaves are sunken in a shallow sump
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTOf energy and loss,
Enriched now with the colors of old coins
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTAnd brilliance of wet leather.
An earthen tea distills at the roots-groins
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTInto the smoky weather
A deep, familiar essence of the year:
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTA sweet fetor, a ghost
Of foison, gently welcoming us near
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTTo humus, mulch, compost.
The last mosquitoes lazily hum and play
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTAbove the yeasting earth
A feeble Gloria to this cool decay
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTOr casual dirge of birth.
|