Poem for Monday

To Autumn
By John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
    For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
  Steady thy laden head across a brook;
  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
  Among the river sallows, borne aloft
    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

--------

Last year the Blake version, this year the Keats version. It's the first day of school, which means that summer is officially over. Sigh. Spent today doing all those final things that had to be done -- haircuts, dollar store school supplies and inevitably braving the line at Staples because younger son's scissors from last year were trashed and older son needed graph paper.

Then we went to the pool with my parents (an annual pilgrimage for me -- I hate swimming in chlorine, sitting in the sun, etc.) so I could see my sons demonstrate that they had "learned" to dive watching the Olympics. They do this periodically: see something on TV or in a movie and decide they don't need lessons, they can do it now that they've seen how. So my younger son, who had never set foot on a diving board in his life before yesterday, got up and did a flip.

I have a few links. My favorite Trek story of a busy weekend (at least until the Doohan con reports start coming in): Rene Auberjonois will join William Shatner on Boston Legal. Guess I really do need to watch, even if I didn't like The Practice. The New York Times had this entertaining article on trying to create a porn channel for women that actually features porn women want to watch -- not softcore, not stuff that's really aimed at gay men like Playgirl. And linked to this article that offended her and is certain to offend serious LOTR fans, a loony right-wing reinterpretation of the trilogy using modern American politics for its bad allegory. I must admit that it really made me giggle, especially the idea of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hanity as Merry and Pippin -- not just WRONG, but a slash couple!


Forward flip off the platform, awarded a 9.8 with deductions for holding the nose. (Photo also receives deductions for being overexposed.)


And this is the very difficult deep-breath flying flailing "What if the water's cold?" Yu-Gi-Oh leap with half-twist.


In the synchronized diving competition, there were a few points taken for a bit of excess splashing on entry.


One of our favorite purchases from Boston -- Yankee Hater hats!


And from this evening, the katydid outside the window that drove my cats insane.