Monday, September 08, 2008

Autumn Music

The legendary Irish warrior Fionn Mac Cumhail (or Finn MacCool) called it "the music of what happens".

It's the splendid fragrance of Michaelmas daisies in the garden behind the little blue house in the village, the heavy heavy dew in that garden at sunrise.

It's the rattling breath of the tall thistles in the hedgerow as they wither and dry and husk themselves, still grasping their spiny sabers like the fearless warriors they have been all summer long.

It's Spencer and I standing in the wet grass by the hedgerow early this morning and watching throngs of swallows assembling on the telephone wires and readying themselves to migrate.

It's the wild geese in singing flight at dawn and dusk as they move back and forth between the wide blue river and the stubble cornfields, the departing ballads of the loons and great herons over the lake, calling goodbye as they go.

It's the slow turning of the wheel of the year all around us, the rhythmic thrum of the earth under our wandering feet, the rustling symphony of the stars over our heads on September nights.

It's life in the Great Round, the slow rhapsodic seasonal dance of the Old Wild Mother who is the mother of us all. This one's for you, Mama Gaia.

5 comments:

jzr said...

Amen!

Lena said...

What a lovely way to welcome the turning of the seasons! I can see and hear it all as if I were right there.

hele said...

Over here spring softly hums as she lightly rushes across the landscape.

Sky said...

your writing becomes music as we read words which lift us, which paint images that inspire us to notice life.

restoration42 said...

Life in the Great Round - sweet words, they touch something deep in my heart.