Pam Webb

a writer's journey as a reader

Archive for the tag “seasons”

30 Jul 2021
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Summer Sun Heats Up the Blues


Photo by asim alnamat on Pexels.com

Summer is when I am usually found living in my hammocks (one for shade and one for sun). However, this year’s extreme heat dome temperatures have created new routines.

I can endure the outside heat up to 90 degrees (with a nearby fan) and then it’s hiding inside the air-conditioned house until evening when the sun goes down and the heat dissipates.

I could take advantage of being inside and completing projects such as decluttering, painting, deep cleaning, getting serious about writing, but here’s the truth: hot weather, extra hot weather, drains my energy and my coping activities range from reading, napping, puzzling to watching movies next to the air conditioner.

I never thought I would spend part of my summer staying inside watching movies. I’m embarrassed.

Reading is always a go to but reading from 1pm to 7pm, the “heat zone” of the day, drifts towards monotony. Did I really say reading can be boring?

Napping is good for a quick 10 minute doze to a serious pass out for two hours. Too much napping means being awake at night.

Puzzling is a passable activity, depending on the puzzle. Staring at 1000 pieces that should become the picture on the box doesn’t always make for a relaxing time.

It’s nearing August. In a typical summer this is our area’s miserable month with triple digit days shifting into one or two weeks, but that has already happened this summer.

As August peeps around the corner I know summer is ready to close down. I usually regret the end of summer, since being outside is my place of choice, yet I’m actually looking forward to fall with its cool mornings, temperate days, and crisp evenings.

We don’t mention the season after fall.

This summer has been extreme in many ways and I never thought I would be distressed at having too much sun.

What are your thoughts about this extreme summer? How have you been coping with the heat?

Posted in reflections and tagged , , ,
04 Apr 2016

POM: April 4


Nikki Giovanni is a poet who knows how to capture a moment, a feeling, an event. She is a poet of note. This poem, never no matter it’s about Tennessee, gets me itching for summer. Summer and its treats is summer regardless of the state. Summer is a state all its own.

Knoxville, Tennessee

Nikki Giovanni, 1943

I always like summer
best
you can eat fresh corn
from daddy’s garden
and okra
and greens
and cabbage
and lots of
barbecue
and buttermilk
and homemade ice-cream
at the church picnic
and listen to
gospel music
outside
at the church
homecoming
and go to the mountains with
your grandmother
and go barefooted
and be warm
all the time
not only when you go to bed
and sleep

Posted in America, American poets, national poetry month, reflections, summer and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
09 Nov 2015
5 Comments

POM: NOVEMBER


Ah, tis November. As much as I like that this month gets me a wee bit closer to the end of the year, which gets me that much closer to the end of first semester, which ushers in second semester, which provides a not-as-distant glimpse of June and summer release, I do like October and I am reluctant to let it totally fade away.

I like its blend of summery days of warmth and crisp evening. I appreciate the last hurrah of garden color mixed with swirling leaves. And I favor the bounteous moons that hover like bloated Chinese lanterns on the night’s horizon.

So, here is an October poem for November. How could I resist “spicy woods”? Yet, Amy Lowell does set the tone well for the Thanksgiving month with her “Hoar-Frost” offering:

In the cloud-grey mornings

I heard the herons flying;

And when I came into my garden,

My silken outer-garment

Trailed over withered leaves.

A dried leaf crumbles at a touch,

But I have seen many Autumns

With herons blowing like smoke

Across the sky.


October

Helen Hunt Jackson
Bending above the spicy woods which blaze,
Arch skies so blue they flash, and hold the sun
Immeasurably far; the waters run
Too slow, so freighted are the river-ways
With gold of elms and birches from the maze
Of forests. Chestnuts, clicking one by one,
Escape from satin burs; her fringes done,
The gentian spreads them out in sunny days,
And, like late revelers at dawn, the chance
Of one sweet, mad, last hour, all things assail,
And conquering, flush and spin; while, to enhance
The spell, by sunset door, wrapped in a veil
Of red and purple mists, the summer, pale,
Steals back alone for one more song and dance.
Posted in Americans, creativity, poems and tagged , ,
20 Apr 2014

Poet Appreciation #7: William Cullen Bryant


Are you a New Yorker? If so, then you know that William Bryant helped establish Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and that Bryant Park is named for him. He was also long time editor of the New York Evening Post. Of course you knew . More importantly, Bryant was part of the Romantics. While the Brits reveled in Wordsworth, Keats, and Shelley, America had its own Romanticist in the form of William Cullen Bryant.

William Cullen Bryant Cabinet Card by Mora-crop.jpg William Cullen Bryant: November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878 (Wikipedia image)

November
by William Cullen Bryant

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,
Ere, o’er the frozen earth, the loud winds ran,
Or snows are sifted o’er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue Gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skim the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.    

I do like fall. Each month has its own cadence. September has its drowsy warm days drifting into chilly nights, and then there is October with its brisk mornings rewarded with a gift of sun before rescinding into frost-quickened nights. Bryant has captured November with its bright, lingering colors mixed into the descending browns, graced with slights of snowfall. November is truly a mixture of seasons with its bits of summer mingling with the foreshadowing of winter. I added “gentian” to my imagery entries. Lovely word. Wonderful poem of images.

Posted in Americans, Nature, Poetry, Seasons, Uncategorized, writers and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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