Autumn Energy

After the summer days that called for laid-back do-nothing hours, this cooler weather that has entered our area calls me to DO SOMETHING.   As a matter of fact, I worked all summer revising and correcting my book manuscript, and now delight in seeing the finished, published product from All Things That Matter Press.  Rachel's Children: Surviving the Second World War has been a 3-year undertaking, begun out of a compelling sense of describing what happens to children during wartime.  The horrors of WWII disoriented the children caught up in that devastating time, and I felt it necessary to honor the experience as it affected children both in the midst of war and those on the perimeters.

Now that work is accomplished I move on to writing about the animals who have been rescued from their own horrors of abuse and neglect, finding new life with those who love and care for them.  The rescue organizations in our area do a magnificent job in spite of being overwhelmed by the needs of those who have suffered.   Cruelty is a common evil and works its terror upon us all, whether we walk with two or four legs.  We all inhabit the same creation and must share the consequences of cruelty as well as the beauty of compassionate care.

In the midst of this transition from one book to the next, autumn has come through the door of the seasons.  It brings with cooler temperatures the energy that has been dormant all during the high and dry heat of summer in this area.  I'm writing poems, carving wood pictures, beginning another book.  Autumn is good.

With October comes my need to share once more the beautiful poem by Robert Nathan.  If he had written no other poem than this, it would have been enough:

                                         Now Blue October

                     Now blue October, smoky in the sun,
                     Must end the long, sweet summer of the heart.
                     The last brief visit of the birds is done;
                     They sing the autumn songs before they part.
                     Listen, how lovely -- there's the thrush we heard
                     When June was small with roses, and the bending
                     Blossom of branches covered nest and bird,
                     Singing the summer in, summer unending --
                     Give me your hand once more before the night;
                     See how the meadows darken with the frost,
                     How fades the green that was the summer's light.
                     Beauty is only altered, never lost,
                     And love, before the cold November rain,
                     Will make its summer in the heart again.