one in sympathy with nature, each season in turn … seems loveliest
Fall on Pinckney Island, SC Oct 26, 2025
The land that has four well-defined seasons cannot lack beauty, or pall with monotony.
Each season brings a world of enjoyment and interest in the watching of its unfolding, its gradual, harmonious development, its culminating graces—and just as one begins to tire of it, it passes away and a radical change comes, with new witcheries and new glories in its train.
And I think that to one in sympathy with nature, each season, in its turn, seems the loveliest.
From Roughing It by Mark Twain (Harper & Brothers: New York, 1913).
shrimping boats are late today swift mischief or stubborn sea lost beneath the tide
The shrimping boats are late today; The dusk has caught them cold. Swift darkness gathers up the sun, And all the beckoning gold That guides them safely into port Is lost beneath the tide. Now the lean moon swings overhead, And Venus, salty-eyed.
They will be late an hour or more, The fishermen, blaming dark’s Swift mischief or the stubborn sea, But as their lanterns’ sparks Ride shoreward at the foam’s white rim, Until they reach the pier I cannot say if their catch is shrimp, Or fireflies burning clear.
Nocturne: Georgia Coast by Daniel Whitehead Hicky as published in Poems of Daniel Whitehead Hicky by Daniel Whitehead Hicky (Atlanta : Cherokee Pub. Co.: Atlanta, 1975).
season of mists and mellow fruitfulness think warm days will never cease
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-eaves run; To bend with apples the mossed 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-brimmed their clammy cells.
To Autumn by Joh Keats as Published in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 11th ed., Volumes 1‑2. Edited by Stephen Greenblatt. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2024).
On a cold fall afternoon in the low country I got my flu shot and my covid shot in the same arm.
The next day summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells and I wish for a Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
in the middle way only fight to recover what has been lost and found
East Coker, V (last section):
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years— Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres Trying to use words, and every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure Because one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling, Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer By strength and submission, has already been discovered Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope To emulate—but there is no competition— There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
From Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), (Harcourt, Brace & Company: New York, 1943) by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965).
I was out walking today in the low country South Carolina town of Bluffton.
Bluffton is part of the reason that this part of South Carolina is showing the fastest growth of almost anywhere in the United States.
Its a small town that back in 1990 had less than 900 people and now has over 40,000.
Things are coming to town like stoplights and roundabouts and sidewalks.
All things going modern and very fast.
Yet, as I walked down the sidewalk I noticed the east west straight line path of the sidewalk took a big loop that was out of line.
See, someone on the town planning commission noticed that make a nice, straight sidewalk, the city would have to take down a long leaf pine tree.
There are two types of pine trees that grow in the low country.
The lob lolly pine, the lumbermans delight, is fast-growing, especially in its first 50 years. Because of this, it’s heavily used in timber and pulpwood plantations where trees are typically harvested at 25–35 years old.
The long leaf pine can is much slower to mature. In its “grass stage,” it may stay low to the ground for up to 5–7 years, putting energy into its root system before shooting upward.
These trees can stick around for 250 to 300 years and some have been documented to have lived 400 years.
In an age when you can’t fight city hall, someone decided this tree which was here before we were and will most likely be here when we are gone, was worth making the effort to make a loop in a stretch of sidewalk.
For some reason, I found comfort in this.
For some reason, I found confidence that there is something here worth the fight.
No Haiku For You 