Tag Archives: Delicious

1310. Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.~George Eliot

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Trickle, trickle, trickle! Plop, plop, plop! How
Steadily the sand falls in the year’s hourglass.
Wait, wait, wait. Day after day we’ve waited
Until at long last you stepped ever so lightly
Through a door which opened months ago.

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How is it that I’m so sure of your presence now?
What is it that speaks loudly of your arrival?
Perhaps it’s the changed hue of a once green leaf,
Or the gusty winds, from both north and south.

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Or could it be the chilled hours at dawn and again
At day’s end? Or it could be the slant of golden
Light, or the nip in the air, or the richness of colors
No longer faded by summer’s miserable heat.

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Or just maybe it’s being able to dally on mellow
Afternoons, or it could be seeing northers
Push hard against the garden’s weathervane
Or maybe it’s the deep blue of the skies above.

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Last season and fourth child of the year,
Autumn, golden, splendid, glorious autumn,
You are late in coming but you’re finally here
And oh, oh, oh, how very welcome you are!

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Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever. ~Psalm 136:1  ✝

**All of these photos were taken by me in and around my neighborhood today. I know many of you have been enjoying autumn for some time, but the colorful part of ours didn’t starting happening until recently. I know not how long it will last since we are rapidly approaching the Winter Solstice but I shall enjoy ever minute of it until winter topples her and sits on its chilly throne.

957. It is November. The noons are more laconic and the sundowns sterner. ~Emily Dickinson

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And November sad,—a psalm
Tender, trustful, full of balm…
~Caroline May

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November is usually such a disagreeable month…as if the year had suddenly found out that she was growing old and could do nothing but weep and fret over it. This year it is growing old gracefully…just like a stately old lady who knows she can be charming even with gray hair and wrinkles. We’ve had lovely days and delicious twilights. ~Lucy Maud Montgomery

The glory of the young men is their strength, gray hair the splendor of the old. ~Proverbs 20:29   ✝

**Collage created  by Natalie

880. Autumn comes with a subtle change in the light, with skies a deeper blue… ~Glenn Wolff and Jerry Dennis

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The stretch between dusk and dawn
A mere whisper in the wind
~reocochran at:
https://witlessdatingafterfifty.wordpress.com

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And so it has been with the coming of the autumnal equinox. Autumn is yet a mere whisper in the wind between yesterday’s dusk and today’s dawn. However, with its arrival the “powers of summer” must now slowly disrobe themselves and go back from whence they came. Despite being sapped and dry from surviving the dog days of summer’s wrath, we should now be able to anticipate the coming of fall’s crisp days that will invigorate us, to hear murmurs of music in untamed winds that will blow freshness into us, to watch bird migrations that will that lift our spirits in the deepening blue skies, and to expect blustery storms that will infuse their energy into our heat-wearied flesh. Oh autumn, how happily we greet thee with our eager yearning for your scents and shapes, sounds and hues.

The birds are consulting, about their migrations,
the trees are putting on the hectic
or the pallid hues of decay,
and begin to strew the ground,
that one’s very footsteps may not
disturb the repose of earth and air, while
they give us a scent that is
a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit.
Delicious autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it, and if
I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns.
~George Eliot

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ~James 1:17  ✝

**Image via Pinterest, text by Natalie

689. The air soft as that of Seville in April, and so fragrant that it was delicious to breathe it. ~Christopher Columbus

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There is no glory or blossom
till looked upon by loving eye;
There is no fragrance in April breezes
till breathed with joy as they wander by.
~William C. Bryant

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Hark, I hear a robin calling!
List, the wind is from the south!
And the orchard-bloom is falling
Sweet as kisses on the mouth.



In the dreamy vale of beeches
Fair and faint is woven mist,
And the river’s orient reaches
Are the palest amethyst.

Every limpid brook is singing
Of the lure of April days;
Every piney glen is ringing
With the maddest roundelays.

Come and let us seek together
Springtime lore of daffodils,
Giving to the golden weather
Greeting on the sun-warm hills.
~Lucy Maud Montgomery

Ask the Lord for rain in the springtime; it is the Lord who sends the thunderstorms. He gives showers of rain to all people, and plants of the field to everyone. ~Zechariah 10:1   ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

584. Autumn is the dim shadow that clusters about the sweet, precious things that God has created in the realm of nature. ~Northern Advocate

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Is not this a true autumn day?
Just the still melancholy that I love–
that makes life and nature harmonize.
…the trees give us a scent that is
a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit.
Delicious autumn!
My very soul is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about
the earth seeking the successive autumns.
~George Eliot

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Goodbye “dreamful autumn,” your “pale amber sunlight” and the “twilight silences” of your “prosaic days” have created their usual “golden spell that penetrates the soul with its mysterious power.” “The leaves by hundreds came…The sunshine spread a carpet, and everything was grand; Miss Weather led the dancing; Professor Wind, the band…the sight was like a rainbow new-fallen from the sky” while “the sound of life” wound “down to its cyclic close” with a “bittersweet, mellow, messy leaf-kicking pause” and “flaming torches” that lighted “the way to winter.” “The mild heavens,” “the tenderly solemn” days and nights, the “reverent meekness in the air,” the bursts of “color and beauty, radiant with glory,” “the fading of holy stars in the dim light of morning,” “the closing up of a beautiful life” all touched again “something old in the human soul.” Your “ripeness and color and time of completion” came “like a warrior, with the stain of blood upon his brazen mail.” His “crimson scarf” was “rent…” “The wind” wafted “to us the odor of leaves that” hung “wilted on the dripping branches…” as your “funeral anthem of the dying year” played on. “The whole body of the air” was “enriched by” the “calm, slow radiance” of your days, and so we listened with delight to your “rhythms that are the heart of life.” And now the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” and the wild “music of autumnal winds amongst the faded wood” have lowered to the gradual hush that always comes “with the deepening of autumn” and the approach of the winter solstice. Oh, “delicious autumn,” “the hush before winter,” “the year’s last, loveliest smile” your “magic of earth-scents and sky-winds” truly are “ordained for the healing of the soul.”

“Nevertheless, I (the Lord) will bring healing to it: I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security.” ~Jeremiah 33:6   ✝

**Image via Pinterest with added text by Natalie

516. I need the seasons to live to the rhythm of rain and sun. ~Sophie Marceau

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The rain began again.
It fell heavily, easily, with no
meaning or intention but the
fulfillment of its own nature…
~Helen Garner

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Late yesterday the wind began pushing hard, very hard against the yard and house. Then rain pelted the roof in the night, and the power went out leaving only the sound of the rain falling in the dark, the utter darkness of deepening night. When day dawned and light at last seeped in, the rain had stopped, but heavy clouds hung low filling heaven’s vast expanse. Outside it was nippy, a nip perhaps chilly enough at last to encourage the changing colors of autumn leaves. Throughout the day as mighty gusts of wind continued to blow and dampness reminiscent of the rain hung in the air, the delicious rhythm of last night’s falling rain lingered in my thoughts. “Listen to the pouring rain, listen to it pour, let it rain all night long…”

Lingering in Happiness

After rain after many days without rain,
it stays cool, private and cleansed, under the trees,
and the dampness there, married now to gravity,
falls branch to branch, leaf to leaf, down to the ground
where it will disappear — but not, of course, vanish
except to our eyes. The roots of the oaks will have their share,
and the white threads of the grasses, and the cushion of moss;
a few drops, round as pearls, will enter the mole’s tunnel;
and soon so many small stones, buried for a thousand years,
will feel themselves being touched.

~Mary Oliver

Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. ~James 5:7   ✝

** Image via Pinterest

 

501. There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by loving eye; there is no fragrance in autumn breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by. ~William C. Bryant

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He couldn’t stop smelling the air
in great, deep, loud sniffs.
It was so delicious.
It smelled of water, and mud,
and maple trees, and autumn.
~Elizabeth Enright

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Sweet fruit
high above me,
out of reach
up in the canopy
formed by wire and bush
Another smell of autumn
sweet sweet smell
of Concord grapes
warming ripening
ready to burst with flavor
strong urgent smell
lured me closer
spreading outward
from the makeshift arbor
a plume twenty feet wide
enticing, coaxing
me to linger
luxuriate in its aroma
smile at the memory
of other pickings
long ago
~Edited poem by Raymond A. Foss

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. ~2 Corinthians 2:14   ✝

** Image via Pinterest

345. Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious. ~Ruth Reichl

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Today and every day may you see the “endlessly delicious” beauty in earth, sky, and sea. May you hear it in the song of the birds, in the wildness of the wind, in the splendor of starry nights. May you smell it in the fruiting and flowering of the earth. May you touch it in earth’s textures and in your human interactions. May you taste it in the food that comes from the fertility of the earth and from Creation’s life giving waters. May all these senses keep your child-like wonder and sense of awe alive and well. And may they teach you something about God’s ways and inspire reverence and gratitude for His gifts and blessings.

One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. ~Psalm 27:4 ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace!

40. Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world. ~Virgil Kraft

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Awake, thou wintry earth –
fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth –
your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn

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Leaf by leaf, bud by bud, and blossom by blossom the spring of the year advances.   On warmish days, earth casts off its wintry gloom, and breezes broadcast sweetly-scented aromas.  The first butterflies then dare to soar and the hungry bees hum amid the glad laughter issuing forth from flowering bulbs and trees.  As a result the year’s initial poetry of rebirth is penned by the pollinating, aerial whirring of dainty wings.  In the meantime as I hurry about trying to taking photos of the blossoming narratives and their paramours, I often find myself asking the same question Walt Whitman once did.  “Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?”  The answer I’ve decided is that the arms of trees reach towards the heavens to gather sacred messages meant to draw mankind near to “the living Word of God in nature” as well as what is read in Scripture.

In our area the first verses of  “tree” poetry come from Saucer Magnolias.  Their big, goblet-shaped flowers pen exquisite couplets in pink and white.  Soon to follow are the brilliant white blossoms of Star Magnolias.  Though not quite enough lines to form a fourteen-lined sonnet, their twelve exquisite, “petal-poesy” lines form rhyming schemes as lovely as any Shakespearean sonnet.  Next and in perfect rhyming sequences come the double samaras.  Samaras, the scarlet, dual winged fruits of the Red Maple, look like long, slender fairy wings as they dance choric rhymes writ by the winds.  Then come the Eastern Redbuds and Bradford Pears that compose stunning free-verse stanzas in purple and white, each resplendent branch, a psalm written in praise of its Maker.  For a pollinator now there’s no quandary about where sweet nectaries are to be found for stanza after stanza they and I are lead in springtime to earth’s most festive and delicious banquets.

He has taken me to the banquet hall, and His banner over me is love.  ~Song of Songs 2:4