Geese in Chevron Flight

I was sitting in the carpark of our local shop tonight when I noticed the geese in chevron flight. It set me to thinking.........that time of year thou mayst in me behold.........I have been in denial, ever the optimist, surrealist.........totally banking on an Indian Summer but it's not going to happen is it? My late sown broad beans, peas and french beans have all been in vain, I've been overzealous in my deadheading so sure that my flowers would fight back all the better with an abundance of fresh growth and buds.

I've now reached the stage where I think...just bring it on....let Autumn steal our Summer from us....the summer that never was.

Everything suddenly seems paler, older.
Summer's comfort is plundered,
far-off marches played on gold trumpets
float over the scented fog.....

Three Autumns
Anna Akhmatova

(In a poetry mood...have been printing off Heaney and Hardy for the son's GCSE english).

 

Poetry...my secret obsession.....don't want to scare people off but I find it's like red wine...the more you drink/read the more you appreciate its depth, structure, style and lingering finish....and the more you want to delve into new vineyards/poets.

My dearest granny, who fevourishly scoured every charity shop that the public transport system would take her to, gave me a first edition (1969) Penguin collection of Selected Poems - Anna Akhmatova. It lay in my car untouched until I stopped for lunch one day (in a job that involved alot of driving around the Province) near the lakes outside Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh. I could not set it down - had to read it cover to cover and I wasn't really into poetry in those days. I'm sure it's so carefully translated (it was lost for a few years when lent to a relative and in desperation to reread I bought a more recent edition from Amazon - such a let down..dare I say prosaic) but wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to enjoy her poems in their mother tongue - surely something is lost along the way.

Anyway I've loved her ever since......she drew me to all things Russian for a time, from her biography to Natasha's Dance by Orlando Figes - the most readable brute of a book that I've come across and I'm no intellect.

Before I get the urge to go, I must gratefully acknowledge another great lady who started all of this rambling in my head (the geese).

All that stays is dying, all that lives is getting out
See the geese in chevron flight
Flappin' and a-racin' on before the snow
They got the urge for going and they've got the wings to go.

Back to flowers tomorrow - I promise x