Blog Banners And Sad Poetry

Hi, friends. Since I have a "creative space" now, I've been painting and dabbling, and I painted three blog banners. The third one you see above with the leaves, pecans, acorns, and pumpkin. 

I also painted this one:

I never was satisfied with it, so I didn't take it over to Ribbet and apply text to it.

The first one I painted I really liked:

But with its roses, it seemed better suited for spring, so I'm saving it until later. I'm enjoying this banner-making, and it gives me an excuse to paint something specific. That's another reason I love the Autumn Journal -- I have somewhere to PUT my paint dabblings. Before, I would paint something, and lacking any purpose for it, or any place to display it, I ended up stacking various "paintings" (it's a stretch to call them that) in a drawer.

One more page of fallish dabbling:

That was pecan-practice for the banner.

Here's a little poetry from the Forest's Robe book I mentioned before. I'll only give you one stanza of "Desolate" by Gerald Massey because the rest of it is so depressing!

Wild winds of Autumn go wailing

Up the valley and over the hill,

Like yearning Ghosts round the world sailing,

In search of the old love still.

Isn't that lovely? The rest is about the sadness of loneliness -- too much!

I'll end with a poem by William Morris -- yes, the textile designer. He was a poet too.

October

O Love, turn from the unchanging sea, and gaze

Down these grey slopes upon the year grown old,

A-dying mid the autumn-scented haze,

That hangeth o'er the hollow in the wold,

Where the wind-bitten ancient elms enfold

Grey church, long barn, orchard, and red-roofed stead.

Wrought in dead days for men a long while dead.

Come down, O love; may not our hands still meet,

Since still we live today, forgetting June,

Forgetting May, deeming October sweet -

- O hearken, hearken! through the afternoon,

The grey tower sings a strange old tinkling tune!

Sweet, sweet, and sad, the toiling year's last breath,

Too satiate of life to strive with death.

And we too -- will it not be soft and kind,

That rest from life, from patience and from pain;

That rest from bliss we know not when we find;

That rest from Love which ne'er the end can gain? -

Hark, how the tune swells, that erewhile did wane!

Look up, love! - ah, cling close and never move!

How can I have enough of life and love?

I read this poem very slowly this afternoon, letting each phrase sink in and materialize into a picture in my mind. The poet sways back and forth in his emotional state -- things are over and nearly done; no, they're not! There is still time for love! Poor man. The final word for him is that he longs still for a little more of life, a few more moments of love.