Friday, November 27 — first day after U.S. Thanksgiving
This delicate and demanding Hopkins poem is beautiful; these days of less and lesser sun make a sweet time for Gerard Manley Hopkins’ brilliant, understated poem about soft paced sorrow, and beauty, and the griefs of 2020, another year that, with its gusts of wind and chilly temperatures, salutes its ending days.
However, not every day will be gloomy. This morning looks gloomy, but it carries promise of autumn’s best gifts to come. Here’s a look at morning sun rising above our snow dusted courtyard. That this picture’s pale and delicate rising sun could appear one day soon – – after months when the late afternoon light showed off its summer glory — reminds us that Autumn teases us with shorter days (today’s Detroit: sunrise to sunset — 7:30 am – 5:05 pm) while in Stockholm, home to Nina, one of my Swedish soul friends, the days are already much shorter, nearly 2.5 hours shorter — 7:55 am – 3:10 pm).
These surprises invite our attention; I am writing this context paragraph at 9:31 am, what will this afternoon have on offer? How many times might one of us return to this Hopkins poem?
Have a blest day,
john st sj
Today’s Post “Spring and Fall”
to a young child
Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
For an audio version, please visit: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44400/spring-and-fall
01844 – 1889
G.M. Hopkins Bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins
Morning sun rising
November 20, 2018