Reset Forty-Nine, Day One Hundred-Two

[rejectomorph]

LJ unusable again, so only this. Lots of sleeping, and pancakes for dinner. It seems likely that I spent most of the day in my imagination, as I remember very little again. The weather forecast shifted again, and the chances of rain Sunday are down to 15%, lower than they were for Saturday which remained entirely dry despite a nice overcast that lingered well into the afternoon. I expect Sunday will end up as dry. I think there will be no significant early autumn rain for us this year.

But surely the worst of summer's heat is over, and to make its remains pleasant enough will take only an absence of wildfires. The days, already foreshortened, make way for longer nights, and soon enough the sun will lose its power to remove all nocturnal chill from even bright airs of afternoons. Then perhaps I'll recall summer's blazing hours with a touch of regret. But for now I view their passing with only a sense of relief. Let it cool!



Sunday Verse

In a Wood

by Thomas Hardy


Pale beech and pine-tree blue,
Set in one clay,
Bough to bough cannot you
Bide out your day?
When the rains skim and skip,
Why mar sweet comradeship,
Blighting with poison-drip
Neighborly spray?

Heart-halt and spirit-lame,
City-opprest,
Unto this wood I came
As to a nest;
Dreaming that sylvan peace
Offered the harrowed ease—
Nature a soft release
From men’s unrest.

But, having entered in,
Great growths and small
Show them to men akin—
Combatants all!
Sycamore shoulders oak,
Bines the slim sapling yoke,
Ivy-spun halters choke
Elms stout and tall.

Touches from ash, O wych,
Sting you like scorn!
You, too, brave hollies, twitch
Sidelong from thorn.
Even the rank poplars bear
Illy a rival’s air,
Cankering in black despair
If overborne.

Since, then, no grace I find
Taught me of trees,
Turn I back to my kind,
Worthy as these.
There at least smiles abound,
There discourse trills around,
There, now and then, are found
Life-loyalties.