{"id":18504,"date":"2016-10-28T06:47:50","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T10:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=18504"},"modified":"2016-10-28T06:47:50","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T10:47:50","slug":"say-not-falling-but-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/say-not-falling-but-released\/","title":{"rendered":"Say Not Falling, But Released"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'gotta<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “gotta match?,” by Laszlo Ilyes; found on Flickr<\/a>, and used here via a Creative Commons license.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

It was one of those sumptuous days when the world is full of autumn muskiness and tangy, crisp perfection: vivid blue sky, deep green fields, leaves in a thousand luminous hues. It is a truly astounding sight when every tree in a landscape becomes individual, when each winding back highway and plump hillside is suddenly and infinitely splashed with every sharp shade that nature can bestow — flaming scarlet, lustrous gold, throbbing vermilion, fiery orange.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Bill Bryson [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Every spirit passing through the world fingers the tangible and mars the mutable, and finally has come to look and not to buy. So shoes are worn and hassocks are sat upon and finally everything is left where it was and the spirit passes on, just as the wind in the orchard picks up the leaves from the ground as if there were no other pleasure in the world but brown leaves, as if it would deck, clothe, flesh itself in flourishes of dusty brown apple leaves, and then drops them all in a heap at the side of the house and goes on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Marilynne Robinson [source<\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a> (italicized lines):<\/p>\n

Fall
\n<\/strong>(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n

And every year there is a brief, startling moment
\nWhen we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
\nSuddenly feel something invisible and weightless
\nTouching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
\nIt is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
\nIt is the changing light of fall falling on us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Edward Hirsch [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Gathering Leaves in Grade School<\/strong><\/p>\n

They were smooth ovals,
\nand some the shade of potatoes—
\nsome had been moth-eaten
\nor spotted, the maples
\nwere starched, and crackled
\nlike campfire.<\/p>\n

We put them under tracing paper
\nand rubbed our crayons
\nover them, X-raying
\nthe spread of their bones
\nand black, veined catacombs.<\/p>\n

We colored them green and brown
\nand orange, and
\ncut them out along the edges,
\nlabeling them deciduous
\nor evergreen.<\/p>\n

All day, in the stuffy air of the classroom,
\nwith its cockeyed globe,
\nand nautical maps of ocean floors,
\nI watched those leaves<\/p>\n

lost in their own worlds
\nflap on the pins of the bulletin boards:
\nwithout branches or roots,
\nor even a sky to hold on to.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Judith Harris [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Shadows<\/strong><\/p>\n

And if to-night my soul may find her peace
\nin sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
\nand in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
\nthen I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
\nAnd if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
\nmy spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
\npervades my movements and my thoughts and words
\nthen I shall know that I am walking still
\nwith God, we are close together now the moon\u2019s in shadow.
\nAnd if, as autumn deepens and darkens
\nI feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
\nand trouble and dissolution and distress
\nand then the softness of deep shadows folding,
\nfolding around my soul and spirit, around my lips
\nso sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
\nsinging darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
\nand the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow,
\nthen I shall know that my life is moving still
\nwith the dark earth, and drenched
\nwith the deep oblivion of earth\u2019s lapse and renewal.<\/p>\n

And if, in the changing phases of man\u2019s life
\nI fall in sickness and in misery
\nmy wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
\nand strength is gone, and my life
\nis only the leavings of a life:
\nand still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
\nodd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
\nsuch as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me<\/p>\n

then I must know that still
\nI am in the hands of the unknown God,
\nhe is breaking me down to his own oblivion
\nto send me forth on a new morning, a new man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(D.H. Lawrence [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The sky and the tree trunks got grayer. The temperature continued its relentless, almost imperceptible downward slide. All the colorful dead maple and oak and sycamore leaves had by now withered and blown away.<\/p>\n

Or no, not all<\/em> of them. Most of them, in fact, would be heaped up into piles at curbsides and in driveways around The Boy\u2019s town, enormous crackling piles which as the weekends clocked by would be lit one by one, a community-wide ritual torching of the last traces of summer. The Boy loved the smell of burning leaves, which was to the perfumes of spring and summer what beef stew was to steak, or corduroy to school clothes: a coarser, more full-bodied saturation of a single sense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(JES, How It Was: Autumn<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “gotta match?,” by Laszlo Ilyes; found on Flickr, and used here via a Creative Commons license.] From whiskey river: It was one of those sumptuous days when the world is full of autumn muskiness and tangy, crisp perfection: vivid blue sky, deep green fields, leaves in a thousand luminous hues. It is a truly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Say Not Fallen, But Released","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,247,1393,250,5,50,36,4,251,4159],"tags":[1447,1910,1987,2220,3620,4430],"class_list":{"0":"post-18504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-backwards","8":"category-ruminations","9":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","10":"category-art","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-language-writing_cat","13":"category-reading","14":"category-howitwas","15":"category-poetry-writing_cat","16":"category-essays","17":"tag-marilynne-robinson","18":"tag-d-h-lawrence","19":"tag-edward-hirsch","20":"tag-bill-bryson","21":"tag-autumn","22":"tag-judith-harris","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/gottamatch_laszloilyes_sm.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4Os","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18504"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18516,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18504\/revisions\/18516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}