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October 2014

It’s kind of like the last time you have sex with an ex: you don’t really know it’s the last time until afterward. The same goes for the last swim of the season. In this case, I thought this day was going to be the last day – only it turn out there would be one more. Now, at the time of this writing in October, I can say with certainty that the last time in the pool was the last time in the pool for this year.

Luckily (or unluckily) for you there was documentation of the days in question, and for this first part here’s the sunny day I thought would be the last but wasn’t.

(There’s a lot more male nudity in Part II, so come back this afternoon…)

The Last Chrysanthemum

By Thomas Hardy

Why should this flower delay so long,
To show its tremulous plumes? 
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song, 
When flowers are in their tombs.

Through the slow summer, when the sun
Called to each frond and whorl
That all he could for flowers was being done,
Why did it not uncurl?

It must have felt that fervid call
Although it took no heed,
Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,
And saps all retrocede.

Too late its beauty, lonely thing,
The season’s shine is spent,
Nothing remains for it but shivering
In tempests turbulent.

Had it a reason for delay,
Dreaming in witlessness
That for a bloom so delicately gay
Winter would stay its stress?

– I talk as if the thing were born
With sense to work its mind;
Yet it is but one mask of many worn
By the Great Face behind.

Goldenrod

By Mary Oliver

On roadsides,
  in fall fields,
      in rumpy bunches,
          saffron and orange and pale gold, 

in little towers,
  soft as mash,
      sneeze-bringers and seed-bearers,
          full of bees and yellow beads and perfect flowerlets 

and orange butterflies.
  I don’t suppose
      much notice comes of it, except for honey,
           and how it heartens the heart with its 

blank blaze.
  I don’t suppose anything loves it, except, perhaps,
      the rocky voids
          filled by its dumb dazzle. 

For myself,
  I was just passing by, when the wind flared
      and the blossoms rustled,
          and the glittering pandemonium 

leaned on me.
  I was just minding my own business
      when I found myself on their straw hillsides,
          citron and butter-colored, 

and was happy, and why not?
  Are not the difficult labors of our lives
      full of dark hours?
          And what has consciousness come to anyway, so far, 

that is better than these light-filled bodies?
  All day
       on their airy backbones
           they toss in the wind, 

they bend as though it was natural and godly to bend,
  they rise in a stiff sweetness,
      in the pure peace of giving
           one’s gold away.

How we ever got to October this quickly is a mystery to me, but life is good when it moves with alacrity. Sadness and uncertainty are what slow things down. The past week flew by, and there is a backlog of travel and fun events that I’ll eventually get around to posting, or not, as I’ve been spending less time behind the keyboard and more time out in the world. So to keep things brief, on with the weekly recap for this Monday morning.

Transitioning from summer to fall (and September to October) means that there are still hot days to be had, and hot men as well. Let’s begin with Brandon Rubendall, Brenton Thwaites and Colin Brazeau.

It was a week of uncharacteristic laughter (at least for here.) In real life I’m much more gregarious than I allow my voice to be on this blog. I’m not sure why. Survival, perhaps. But I broke down that wall of serious intent with this Auntie Fee post, and a laughter-inducing clip of Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader.

It was a week that saw summer slowly slide out of the Cape, but it did so in a way that was subtle and sweet and gloriously simple. The Mermaid of Shore Road was back in effect.

My last single friend got married. (But more on that later…)

Who knew such color could come from Cambridge?

Not one poem for fall, but two.

Finally, there were even more Hunks to keep the warmth pulsating, like David Terzian, Ben Affleck, and Jackson Lombardi.

PS – All right, the week was really all about this: Nick Jonas grabbing his crotch and baring his butt cheeks.

A Song for Autumn

In the deep fall
    don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
    the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
    freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
    warm caves, begin to think

of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
    inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
    the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
    vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
    its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
    the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

~ Mary Oliver

Behind me the Bourne Bridge grows smaller in the distance, and a mermaid swims deeper into the recesses of memory. I am heading West, but I won’t get far. Home is still in upstate New York, just one state beyond Massachusetts, and a relatively short distance, though it feels a world away. The weekends go by too quickly, especially in the fall.

Fall itself feels fleeting, at least at the start, at the pretty part. Before it all goes brown and dead. Then fall slows its march, drawing out the cold and setting up a lengthy preamble to winter. We are a decent distance from that right now, so let’s now dwell on the inevitable. Not just yet. The sun can still be warm. The sky can still be blue. The summer can still be remembered.

Fall Song