To be Continued

[rejectomorph]

Furious rain is expected here. The mass of mulberry leaves which have fallen over the last two days of drizzle and mist will become sodden. At first, the rain will make an alarming clatter as it drenches them, but as they get wetter they will flatten out and the sound will diminish. That's the way it always is when I don't get around to raking them before a big storm. By the time I get a chance to pick them up, they will be heavy and muddy and the odor of their decay will pervade the air. If there is a freeze, it will be even worse. The mulberry is not a suitable tree for this climate. Even with half its leaves fallen, the tree still casts a dense shade -- or will, if the wan December sun emerges to have its light intercepted. I've long wanted to replace that tree with something else. A pecan would be nice, as it would provide food for the squirrels and birds, along with spring and summer shade. By now, it would be almost bare, and more light would reach my window on sunny days. But I don't know if a pecan would thrive at this elevation, and it would take years to grow large enough to be useful. Thus I let the mulberry remain. Each December I curse it, and each summer I take pleasure in its dense shade. I will probably die before it does.

Sunday again already, and the last day of November. I must try to catch up with my past later today, despite its reluctance to emerge. If I wake up early enough, I might get something done. If I am to wake up early enough, I must now sleep. But first, verse in honor of the moon, of which I have seen little on these recent cloudy nights; nor am I likely to do so any time soon.

Under the Moon of Seven Woods

by William Butler Yeats


I have no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde,
Nor Avalon the grass-green hollow, nor Joyous Isle,
Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while;
Nor Ulad, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind;
Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart:
Land-under-Wave, where out of the moon's light and the sun's
Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long-lived ones,
Land-of- the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart,
And Wood-of-Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn,
To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier.
Therein are many queens like Branwen and Guinevere;

And Niamh and Laban and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn,
And the wood-woman, whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk;
And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun, or shore,
Or on the unpeopled waves with kings to pull at the oar,
I hear the harp-string praise them, or hear their mournful talk.

Because of something told under the famished horn
Of the hunter's moon, that hung between the night and the day,
To dream of women whose beauty was folded in dismay,
Even in an old story, is a burden not to be borne.