tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post7334738803402219519..comments2024-03-23T20:37:37.891-07:00Comments on First Known When Lost: DwellingStephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-28068418537040382952015-09-29T13:17:16.478-07:002015-09-29T13:17:16.478-07:00Mary: I'm pleased you liked Raine's poem....Mary: I'm pleased you liked Raine's poem. It does capture the essence of those circumstances in a lovely and affecting manner, doesn't it? A number of poems in that same volume are about her mother, and they are similarly lovely and moving.<br /><br />As always, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts, and for your kind words about the blog. I hope you are enjoying autumn.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-25821424720505364432015-09-29T11:29:55.412-07:002015-09-29T11:29:55.412-07:00The poem by Kathleen Raine moved me very much - th...The poem by Kathleen Raine moved me very much - that emptied room, the well loved possessions distributed to begin a new life with another. I've been there.<br />Thanks as always for your beautiful blog. <br />Marymary f.ahearnnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-44548656486150443682015-09-27T11:03:36.292-07:002015-09-27T11:03:36.292-07:00Mr. Floyd: Thank you very much for your thoughts ...Mr. Floyd: Thank you very much for your thoughts on autumn, and for MacLeish's poem, which is new to me. I think he is right: I think that autumn is indeed "the human season." Of course, I confess that I am biased in the matter, given that autumn is by far my favorite season. Who knows why that is so (for any of us). In my experience, it is something that I have felt since my earliest stirrings of consciousness. I have no idea why. (I fully appreciate that others may feel differently, and have their own favorite seasons, for their own reasons, which I respect.)<br /><br />As always, thank you for stopping by, and for sharing your thoughts. And now, because it is a sunny, cool beautiful autumn day where I live, I am going to walk out into it.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-47903449711644563572015-09-27T09:46:52.595-07:002015-09-27T09:46:52.595-07:00When I read your post on the coming of fall--and I...When I read your post on the coming of fall--and I agree with your sentiments; I, too, am sick of venal irony, a poor camouflage of cynicism and ugly sarcasm--I remembered that forty years ago or so, in my salad days when I was green in judgment, my face needing no razor to scythe its thin fuzz, I read a novel titled "The Human Season." I forget who wrote it.<br /><br />The title, I remember, comes from the poem "Immortal Autumn" By Archibald McLeish, a poem I looked up then (I don't know that anyone reads MacLeish anymore). I don't think I've read the poem since I read it all those decades ago. I looked it up after reading your post. You imply in your post that autumn is, indeed, the human season, and it seems to me that if any season is a human one, it is autumn. Here is the poem:<br /><br />I speak this poem now with grave and level voice<br />In praise of autumn, of the far-horn-winding fall.<br /><br />I praise the flower-barren fields, the clouds, the tall<br />Unanswering branches where the wind makes sullen noise.<br /><br />I praise the fall: it is the human season.<br />Now<br />No more the foreign sun does meddle at our earth,<br />Enforce the green and bring the fallow land to birth,<br />Nor winter yet weigh all with silence the pine bough,<br /><br />But now in autumn with the black and outcast crows<br />Share we the spacious world: the whispering year is gone:<br />There is more room to live now: the once secret dawn<br />Comes late by daylight and the dark unguarded goes.<br /><br />Between the mutinous brave burning of the leaves<br />And winter’s covering of our hearts with his deep snow<br />We are alone: there are no evening birds: we know<br />The naked moon: the tame stars circle at our eaves.<br /><br />It is the human season. On this sterile air<br />Do words outcarry breath: the sound goes on and on.<br />I hear a dead man’s cry from autumn long since gone.<br /><br />I cry to you beyond upon this bitter air.<br /><br />bruce floydnoreply@blogger.com