Or heard:

To Autumn, read by Stanley Plumly, from poets.org

http://www.freeimages.co.uk

My first morning in my new home I woke to fog covering the trees in a soft blur. At the window I saw pastures stretching ahead. My new home backs into wetlands, a few yards wide, it seems. Beyond, a few acres of meadow where there are horses. There are five in all: one black, one brown, one white, and two pintos, one of which must have been born recently. They are all, in a word, beautiful. The black horse is a bit of a loner, but the brown horse adores the white horse. He (I’m guessing) follows her, and stands close, not exactly nuzzling, but at this distance I can’t be sure. She stamps her front leg, he stamps his back; their tails flick.

Dragonflies and tiny birds swoop in the autumnal heat, and the squirrel looks in the window, affronted, curious, who can say? Maybe he misses the cat who lived here. Near noon, three large ravens–okay, crows–noisily investigated an old nest. Today’s sunrise looked like a Rothko painting, but with many more striations.

I’ve backed into paradise; I’ve backed into it before, but never with a such a view.

http://www.photographersgallery.com/photo.asp?id=2854

patience

I’ve been far too attached to my email lately, checking it every hour, waiting for news, reports, answers, without anything specific in mind.  It’s like a mindless, free-floating watch, waiting for a tap on the shoulder to push me forward.  Not that I can’t do something: try for a grant; apply for a job.  Deadlines loom, but the largest one is my anticipated move to my new home.

I imagine what the new place looks like; I am renting it sight unseen.  I troll the real estate ads for a glimpse of a place similar to the one that will be mine, look at the layouts, wonder if I’ll have a place to garden. Could I plant a topiary in a container in the spring?  I should use my daydreams more wisely, that is, if that were not an oxymoronic thought in itself.  I might dream of writing surfaces, fresh paper, new pens.  This is what the fall has always meant to me.  Instead I peruse on-line catalogs, looking for a decadent  armchair at a fraction of the going price.  I make lists of things to bring, things to buy.  I decide I will live an organic, sustainable life without too many things.  I wonder if I could get an armchair with down-filled cushions.  I decide to become vegan.  I decide to remain vegetarian.  I resolve to practice more yoga.  I wonder what I will plant in the spring.