Categoría: autumn

My Ode to Autumn (here in the countryside of Posadas, Cordova)

Hi folks — I hope you are all in good health and spirits.

I love the warm hues of autumn and also the season, because of the richness of colours, the softening sun diluted by mists, the contrasting weather and the maturity of the ending year. Then there is Christmas with its brightness and promise just round the corner — as well as my birthday!

Well, I just wanted to share with you a few photos that reflect this season here in Posadas countryside (Cordova):

The leaves of the pistacia lentiscus (lentisco) or mastic gum bush are already turning to copper
The snowflakes (campanilla de primavera) and the buttercups (ranúnculo) are early because of the mild weather
Here are the snowflakes again, and they are in fact, as delicate as snowflakes
Vibrant-coloured leaves from the mulberry and plane tree (morera and platanero de sombra)
And the earth shines under warm skies
The weather was so mild that it was warm enough for a barbeque (paella!)
The evening gave way to a lovely sunset…
…with the moon rising to the east of the haunted castle of Almodóvar del Río
But the clouds quickly stole in overnight and by midday the heavens opened…
I watched the scene from my window…
and decided it was time to light a warming fire!

To finish, here is my favourite Ode to Autumn, by the romantic poet, John Keats (1795-1821):

Joseph Severn’s miniature of Keats, 1819

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-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d 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-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
  Steady thy laden head across a brook;
  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
  Among the river sallows, borne aloft
    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies

Well, that’s all for now. If you’d like to see some more of my work, then you can visit this site.

Thank you for reading — as usual, comments and questions always welcome.

Take care! xxx