Babs writes: While most of the color is gone the yellows seem to stay around longer. These were one day last week and with sun on them I was impressed. Enjoy.
But of course. And I recommend clicking for the big picture, too. You can get lost in the leaves.
Do you remember “Margaret” – the one who wept as the leaves fell, not realizing yet just what it was that made her ache? Every year about this time I think of the English teacher I did not much like who nonetheless introduced me to the power of spoken poetry with this very poem. No wonder I’m trapped amongst the Victorians. I can still hear her reciting . . .
Spring and Fall
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
to a young child
Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
Torch Lake Views 
Joss
November 7, 2011
Thank you for reminding me how much I like the work of Gerard Manley Hopkins. I shall go away and read some more, just for myself, not to discuss with any students.
Gerry
November 7, 2011
You’re welcome. GMH has probably gone so far out of fashion as to be coming around again. When you have peacefully enjoyed a good read, it would be a kindness to the students to read just one poem to them. Perhaps it will be a kindness to just one–but that one may remember it the rest of her life. No need for discussion. Too much discussion of poetry and not enough saying it out loud. Too much raking of leaves and not enough lying in a pile of them watching the last golden trees gleaming in the sun.
P.j. grath
November 7, 2011
The image and the words are both very beautiful. It’s good to slow down to that pace before the day gets very far underway. Is GMH really considered “among the Victorians”? My literary history background is as much holes as cloth, but I always think of Hopkins as quite the modern mystic. My favorite of his poems is “Pied Beauty,” which was my best antidote for–Nietzsche! But the Margaret poem is another gem. Are our hearts colder, though? I think my own is warmer–toward the world, toward other people, even toward myself. The poem tells a part of the truth. It is the truth of a certain mood. As a woman of a certain age, however, I must put in a word for other, warmer moods–yes, even as leaves are stripped away and nights become darker, colder and longer.
Gerry
November 7, 2011
‘Morning, PJ! You are right as to the literary classification of GMH, but I never let a little thing like that worry me. He lived and thought and wrote during Victoria’s reign and in my mind that makes him part of the era, whether he would like it or not. But I think the era itself deserves re-examination. Most eras do. Looked at properly–which is another way of saying “from my point of view”–they are all much broader, richer, and more complex than we give them credit for being.
Are our hearts colder? Not ours! But they are perhaps filled with greater sorrows than the end of autumn, Or perhaps all sorrow does spring from the same place, and mourning is just a metaphor we’ve created to represent our terror.
Maybe not. The sun’s shining again, and the Cowboy says we should get out in it and roll in something stinky on the beach. Miss Sadie says if he does that again she’ll give him something to be sorrowful about.
P.j. grath
November 7, 2011
Me again. There are a lot of Victorian poets I like. For today, though, it’s the beech leaves I LOVE TO DISTRACTION! Don’t they look just completely EDIBLE? Buttered toast! Rootbeer and butterscotch! Waffles with syrup! (Is it lunch time yet?)
Gerry
November 7, 2011
Well it wasn’t going to be but now it is. I’m suddenly ravenous.
Molly
November 8, 2011
I am always amazed at GMH. As my 10 year old would say: He rocks!
Gerry
November 8, 2011
You have an extraordinarily sophisticated ten year old.
Scott Thomas Photography
November 10, 2011
Just went through the last few posts, Gerry. Looks like you had a lovely fall including lights in the night sky. Hats off to your helpers!
Gerry
November 13, 2011
Could not get by without ’em. Takes the whole village to keep me upright.
shoreacres
November 13, 2011
Just a beautiful photo, and a wonderful reminder of my own love of Hopkins. Life being what it is, we tend to forget some of these things, though I try to incorporate them whenever I can.
Kudos to your teacher. Mine started us out with The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls.
Gerry
November 13, 2011
A good teacher can make all the difference–and even a so-so teacher can have a really good day. Bless ’em all.