Entry # 103 - "Thoughts on Autumn"

 October 19, 2012

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Each leaf falls as if it were motioning, "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling

away from all the other stars in the loneliness.

Photo Credits - Jan Bowman - Oct. 18, 2012

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.

And look at the other one...It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone whose hands

infinitely calm, hold up all this falling.

Rainer Maria Rilke, (1875-1926)

---Translated by Robert Bly

"A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."

----proverb in Sierra Magazine - November/December 2012  from Last Words page.

Photo Credit - Jan Bowman - Oct. 18, 2012

 And a few final words from T. S. Eliot's "Burnt Norton" in Four Quartets:

"Words strain,

Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, 

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,

Will not stay still."
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Jan Bowman’s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, Broadkill Review, Trajectory, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes, and others. She won the 2011 Roanoke Review Prize for Fiction. Her stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and a story was a finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories and currently shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction work pending publication in Spring 2013 Issues of Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at:

Website – www.janbowmanwriter.com

Blogsite – http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com