Tag Archives: poem

Sep22

Autumn’s Here and Aspens Here We Come!

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Autumn’s Here and Aspens Here We Come!

Here in my neck of the woods autumn arrived overnight when a cold front blew in rain and cooler temperatures. By the books the summer ends today and the meteorologists are saying officially the autumn equinox takes place this evening. But my senses tell me it is already here! All just in time for a road trip to Colorado to see groves of glowing aspen, rigid mountains, and brief visits with friends and family along the way and back. Packed long and short-sleeve shirts, shorts, leggings, jeans, jackets, socks and my boots. I brought my sandals as well as a winter coat just in case. Ready for it all!

Preparations have been made all week. Bills paid ahead, ordered the mail to be held until we get back, arrangements made for my brother & sister-in-law to look after our cottage and yard, ate leftovers and emptied the frig. All were a reminder that vacation is finally here. Dean and I put off a week-long vacation this summer to experience this autumn get-away. Our last long road trips this year were to St. Augustine in February for a sunny vacation, and Gulfport, Mississippi in March to make arrangements for my younger brother’s remains after his sudden death. But these next 9 days away we will travel to the countryside and be with the “Talking Tree, a place where spirit and nature can be”. 

Come with me to the Talking Tree
a place where spirit and nature can be.
Where science of the forest couples
with ancient traditions of the land.
Where indigenous people learn to live
with trees mindfully hand in hand.

Listen to branches rustling hymns
through silent sounds in their limbs.
Mighty Maples murmur in the breeze
sweet tales of syrup drawn to please.

Trees converse, they do care
sending forest messages everywhere.
Through the air and underground
signals pulse from floor to crown.

Quaking Aspen is known for being
the earth's most massive living thing
these trees united by one root system
the world's largest superorganism.

Trees often act for collective good
doing exactly what they should.
Sometimes they will reset their mast
until the attacking danger's passed.

Internal rhythms set their pace
slower than the human race.
Tree's daily burden that they bare
is they process the world's air.

Did trees learn survival plans proven
in the 360 million years pre-human?
What do 7 billion humans foresee
as the fate for earth's 3 trillion trees?

Fallen trees again live too
vessels that life flows through.
Their wood relives deeply in
buildings, books even violins.

So stand with me in equanimity
and listen for lyrics patiently.
Wait to hear beneath this tree
poised to the sound of "poetree".

by Greg Gaul
Sep12

September’s Shift

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September’s Shift

Summer has been long and August lollygag gelled around until finally September has appeared. September’s shift is focused on seasonal changes. Cooler breezes, the air crispier, green leaves beginning to yellow, frantically feeding hummingbirds almost ready for migration, and squirrels burying nutty treasures before the frozen months. Welcome to the prelude of autumn. School children busy about their studies, football games, band practice, parents carpooling, traffic lines longer, and work schedules tightening after a lazier summer season.

This week my regular cooking classes start up again with 5 adults’, 4 children’s, and 1 adult/child class ahead of me. I am teaching this semester with the community college’s continuing education program plus 2 Saturday classes offered at a new venue, a local lavender farm. See more about these classes and where to sign up on my culinary class page. This weekend I worked on a recipe for photos for my crockpot apple cobbler. My Dean surely doesn’t mind being a taste tester. After that all-time record 10″ rain one night in late July, we realized our gutters needed new facia put in. So, Dean finished up the gutter project this weekend, replacing old facia boards that should have been done when a crew was hired last year for a new roof and gutters. That took 4 full days over the past few weekends to secure our cottage from these pop-up storms we have been experiencing.

Autumn is showing up in our neighborhood homes and shops, too. A prompting to shift my decor this week, an autumn wreath placed on the door, a leafy-print runner, amber lights, and pumpkins gracing the buffet. The perennials thickened up over the growing season. A trimming is needed before they come indoors early October, another project for this week. I plan to give away a few pots of houseplants as we have more than plenty. If you live in the metro St. Louis area and need greenery to warm up your home this winter, please let me know if you’d like a green houseplant such as a Boston fern, asparagus fern, spider plant, or philodendron. Each are in showy ceramic or terra cotta pots.

Summer Taking A Curtsy

Lazy daisy, dandelion days of summer are taking a curtsy,

Making way for golden rod, crispy air, and blowing winds.

Soon a final goodbye to the hummingbirds, butterflies so flirty.

With nectar-filled blooms giving a bow and then final bends,

Flowerheads wither, seeds scatter, food for the birdies.

An autumn canvas with yellow, orange, and red blends

Come after September’s rains and sunny days with certainty.

Anna Marie Gall September 4, 2022

Feb28

Word and Plant Gardens

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I mentioned in last month’s post about my Valentine poem My Delicious Lover being published. I feel honored as it won 1st Place and a $100 award from Flapper Press. You can find this poem in my Word Garden page or on Flapper Press’ website. I have been journaling and writing for years as well as blogging for 12 years. This blog is speckled with stories, photos, recipes, poems, inspirations, and information on various topics. Take a couple of minutes for an inspirational thought or comical relief while reading a monthly post or page. Writing has been a fun winter occupation while the lousy weather is relentless. No place to be except at the desk typing on the laptop in my retirement days.

While on vacation in Florida we purchased some small succulents and brought them back undamaged in the long road trip. I immersed my hands into soil especially made for succulents one afternoon this week. I used a repurposed teapot, small pint jar painted yellow, tall & skinny vase-like ceramic, and galvanized metal box for planters. They turned out quite cute. I hope to sell these succulent planters and garden ware in the days ahead, as spring is only 3 weeks away. True gardeners like myself are itching to plant and attend to their green life once again. We dubbed the flea market booth as Flock Together Mercantile. Please find the details of what, where, who, and why this booth was created on this page found here on this blog site.

As a culinary instructor and life-long learner, I have many online and printed resources I turn to for recipe creations. The most inspiring these days is the making of herbal teas or tisanes. One of my resources is Mountain Rose Herbs based in Oregon. An article “How To Create Your Own Herbal Tea Blends” was included in one of their monthly newsletters years ago. I want to try these herbal blend principles and will attempt to make some of my own blends using my organically grown herbs this year. I love a glass of iced tea while gardening or a cup of steeping hot tea while writing and reading. In the future I hope to share some tea-blend recipes on my Recipes page right here on this blog site.

Thank you for joining me in my gardening adventures. Writing about them is all a part of this pure joy!

May10

My Haven Is Home

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My haven is home.  So blessed during this stay-at-home order Dean and I have been given opportunity to care for our home and yard.  Our home gives back so much more.  And spring has been so pleasant this year, very much like spring should be.  Sunshine, rains, a random storm brews up, cool mornings, and warmer afternoons.  We had a couple of days it felt more like summer, but it cooled down after the rains.  And then a few frost warning mornings, but it never came.  Better safe than sorry, we covered our annuals and perennials.  Kind of like the corona virus for us.  We take the precautions: masks, social distancing, and extra sanitation in our home and when we are out.

These mild temperatures and regular watering from the rains has provided such a green haven of leaves, grasses, mosses, and foliage.  Mid-spring the dogwood, azalea, clematis, irises and the flowering trees, bushes, and stemmed blooms are clothed in white or more showy colors of fuchsia, paler pinks, purples, blues, oranges, yellows, and reds.  The peonies are exceptional this year.  The song birds are plentiful.  Their songs divine.  The morning doves, robins, finches of purple and yellow, grosbeaks, cardinals, indigo buntings, nuthatches, and sparrows of many species come to our feeders and reside in the birdhouses or bushes.  Hawks and owls call out throughout the day and night as their homes are nearby.  Of course, families of squirrels and rabbits in the neighborhood are for the taking by these birds of prey.  Occasionally, it is a morning dove for a meal.

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care;
       To stay at home is best.

Weary and homesick and distressed,
They wander east, they wander west,
And are baffled and beaten and blown about
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
       To stay at home is best.

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
The bird is safest in its nest;
O’er all that flutter their wings and fly
A hawk is hovering in the sky;
       To stay at home is best.

Song by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Oct12

Autumn Rains

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I took my antihistamine this morning as advised by my allergist.  When the temperatures get under 50, that is when my cold-allergy symptoms such as sneezing, a runny nose, and joint aches start up.  This was the 2nd morning in a row for more autumn-like weather, and today a cold rain to boot.  Feeling a little edgy at the office, I needed to get outside, rain or not at my lunch break.  I bundle myself in my rain jacket, already in jeans and boots this casual Friday.  My long 4-block stroll in the autumn rain was delightfully quiet.  The outdoors, “mother nature” calms me.  Things do not seem so big anymore in the vastness of the sky and trees.  I warmed up with a cup of hot tea when back at my desk.

My Minnesota friends have had the white fluffy stuff this week.  Last weekend in Kansas City, a cold rain pretty much non-stop for 2 days.  On the east side of Missouri the cold front finally came.  We went from August to November weather conditions in 2 days.  Our tomato plants situated in a screen house in rural St. Charles County may experience their first frost tonight.  This weekend’s visit to the farm will probably include picking green tomatoes, and next week preparing green tomato preserves.  I have housed my perennials and tropical plants in the house, basement, or garage for the next 5 or 6 months.

 

Autumn Rain by Gerry Legister

When we see summer changes 
The clothes we wear quickly disappear, 
And the next season rearranges 
Clouds more fastidious in the atmosphere. 

The fall is here; it means a new challenge 
For our clothes, shoes and hair 
From the warmth of summer to darker rage 
Autumn quietly drifts in unaware.

Let the autumn rain fall upon you, 
Let the autumn rain beat upon the trees 
Until the leaves fall down and become new. 
Let the autumn season fondly release

The changes that time replicates 
Shadows on the floor and rain in the air, 
With pools of water running off the trees 
And wash down into the gutter.

Let the rain fall softly while you sleep 
And make the rhythm night beat 
With a lullaby playing upon the housetop, 
A note of intrigue to adorn the light.

When pools of water from the sidewalk 
Splash upon you with quick surprise, 
It makes you walk with a watermark 
To stain the perfect spot on our tresses. 

Sep18

Autumn Rain

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Humidity dominated the air the past two days after a spell of crisp, clear mornings and evenings.  The walks have been lovely.  The leaves scurry about.  Finally raindrops splatter the parched earth here in St. Charles County.   The thunder rumbles.  A lovely sound.  Our Labrador, Midnight does not seem to mind it too much. It has been a long while to hear these stormy sounds.  No walk outside tonight for safety sake.  If it was just rain, well I would welcome a walk in the rain!  I will finish my daily quota of steps indoors while vacuuming the floors.

The wind begun to rock the grass
With threatening tunes and low, —
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,
The thunder hurried slow;
The lightning showed a yellow beak,
And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,
The cattle fled to barns;
There came one drop of giant rain,
And then, as if the hands

That held the dams had parted hold,
The waters wrecked the sky,
But overlooked my father’s house,
Just quartering a tree.

~ Emily Dickinson

Trees Let Go

 

Aug4

Change

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Midnight, our almost 13-year old Labrador wanted outside at 3:30 this morning. Odd, as he is usually sacked out on the couch at this wee hour of the morning. And then he did not want back in. Midnight wanted to lay in his backyard, and Dean left him there. Morning came an hour earlier today…Midnight & New Pillow 2016

As we set out for work this Friday,  I understood why Midnight wanted to stay outside. Our dog was welcoming the “change in the air”, the first of the family to feel the air switch directions, a cool brisk wind from the north.  It is an annual event, noticed by the animals and nature-sensitive people. This colder air brings the geese honking and ducks quacking overhead at sunrise and dusk. Deep-sighing breathes are taken in relief of the sultry summer heat.  Dinner menus change to comfort foods. Poems are even written about this change in the air. My oldest daughter wrote this poem in honor of this change and her mother saying every year …

The woods begin to vibrate with gathering and preparation. 

The sounds so crisp, electric.

Her words were “I felt the air change today.”

Red, orange, yellow, green, brown.

They dance while falling.

A choreographed waltz.

Every year she said “I felt the air change today.”

Beautiful, breathtaking, loyal.

The Canvas.

I think I felt the air change today.

With this change in the air comes thoughts of autumn and winter, getting the household, greenhouse, and gardens ready for the cold seasons. Another crop of greens will be sowed next week, maybe give us 2 or 3 more months of salads. Smaller pots and baskets of our perennials will be combined into bigger pots in preparation for their indoor home. But this time it is something more than a season change for our green life as said in the lyrics of A Change in the Air sung by Clint Black …

There’s something talkin’ in the wind
Whispering through the trees
That feeling in my bones again
Just puts me right at ease
It takes me back to all the times
I’ ve been here before
But crossroads, old familiar signs
Tell me there’s something more

Can’t explain, there’s something strange about the early fall
It’s comfort leaving me without a care
I remain but everything around me hears the call
And tonight I feel a change in the air

The leaves are turning, soon they’ll fall
There’s a norther blowing in
The memories flowin’, I recall
Those changes in the wind
But I can never try to understand
There’s nothing you can hold in your hand

Can’t explain, there’s something strange about the early fall
It’s comfort leaving me without a care
I remain but everything around me hears the call
And tonight I feel a change in the air

Yes I’ll surely feel a change in the air

Fall Quote

Jul23

Let It Rain

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“Answer July—
Where is the Bee—
Where is the Blush—
Where is the Hay?

Ah, said July—
Where is the Seed—
Where is the Bud—
Where is the May—
Answer Thee—Me—”
~  Emily Dickinson, Answer July 

I am missing May.  This July in Missouri has been a scorcher.  Parched the past few days, rain finally came overnight after a 108 degree day in the St. Louis region.  More is needed.  I pray. Yesterday Dean and I walked Midnight late-morning.  The tree leaves were turned and folded in an attempt to protect from the blasting sun rays. They made a wither y rustle when a slight breeze came by.  We waited until dusk for that last walk of the day.  The sun, oh so hot this summer!  Yet I am reminded of its purpose by the flowering beauty of our bird of paradise, the delicate peppery flavor of arugula shoots, the calmness of green in my Swedish ivy planter, and the glimmering glass art butterflies at the Butterfly House.

Sep17

Communique

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Every day brings a ship,
Every ship brings a word;
Well for those who have no fear,
Looking seaward well assuredOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
That the word the vessel brings
Is the word they wish to hear.

This poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson is called Letters.    Letters are a type of communique, a collection of words intended for a person or persons.  Letters have been written for years, centuries, and millenniums.  Their forms have been on stone tablets, metal, wood, paper, electronic mail (e-mail), Messenger, and even the Bible mentions words have been scripted on the heart.  Yes, words are heart matters.  Read a poem, letter, scripture passage, blog post, or journal page, and you can feel the author’s heart.

This poem mentions a hope for the word(s) one wishes to hear.  What do you hope to hear today?  “I love you.”  “I am sorry.”  “I need you.”  “I am okay.”  “I miss you.”  “You are healed.”  “Forgiveness.”  “Thinking of you.” “See you soon.”  “I am trying.” …

The next question:  What word(s) can you share with someone today?  My words to share today are “I love you despite all my imperfections and your imperfections.”

 

Aug1

Water

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Water, sun, my life

Body, mind, spirit, my God

River nourish my soul roots.

Anna Gall

August 1, 2016

 

Riverside in ColoradoTrout Lake near Rico, Colorado

Lake vapors into clouds

Blues bluer, greens greener, rain

Grays grayer, a mist.

Anna Gall

August 1,  2016

Water… rain water, river water, lake water, ocean water, tear drops, sweat, and our blood.  Precious life. H2O. Life’s commodity. Substance.  I now drink water, at least a gallon everyday. My 24 ounce insulated beverage tumbler is filled 3+ times a day. H2O is cleansing my body and I am losing weight this summer. Down 10 lbs.  Health and healing inside and out.

“All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea—whether it is to sail or to watch it—we are going back from whence we came.”  John F. Kennedy, 1962