Today I rode my bicycle to Exeter, then on to Hampton Falls and back to Hampton, and the whole way there were late autumn smells wafting up along the road, apples on the ground, bees dipping into open flowers, the sounds of lawn mowing. The pigs were out at the Hurd farm, and even the lamas were enjoying the sun.
Grace Metalious's lovely opening paragraph kept floating up behind my eyes and rattling around my brain. She got the experience and nobody since has ever got it better:
“Indian Summer is like a woman. Ripe, hotly passionate, but fickle, she comes and goes as she pleases so that one is never sure whether she will come at all, nor for how long she will stay. In northern New England, Indian summer puts up a scarlet-tipped hand to hold winter back for a little while. She brings with her the time of the last warm spell, an uncharted season which lives until winter moves in with its backbone of ice and accoutrements of leafless trees and hard frozen ground. Those grown old, who have had the youth bled from them by the jagged-edged winds of winter, know sorrowfully that Indian summer is a sham to be met with hard-eyed cynicism. But the young wait anxiously, scanning the chill autumn skies for the sign of her coming. And sometimes the old, against all the warnings of better judgement, wait with the young and hopeful, their tired, winter eyes turned heavenwards to seek the first traces of a false softening.”
That's what good literature is, I suppose. Truth and style.
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| Odd duck at Batchelder Pond |
Grace Metalious's lovely opening paragraph kept floating up behind my eyes and rattling around my brain. She got the experience and nobody since has ever got it better:
“Indian Summer is like a woman. Ripe, hotly passionate, but fickle, she comes and goes as she pleases so that one is never sure whether she will come at all, nor for how long she will stay. In northern New England, Indian summer puts up a scarlet-tipped hand to hold winter back for a little while. She brings with her the time of the last warm spell, an uncharted season which lives until winter moves in with its backbone of ice and accoutrements of leafless trees and hard frozen ground. Those grown old, who have had the youth bled from them by the jagged-edged winds of winter, know sorrowfully that Indian summer is a sham to be met with hard-eyed cynicism. But the young wait anxiously, scanning the chill autumn skies for the sign of her coming. And sometimes the old, against all the warnings of better judgement, wait with the young and hopeful, their tired, winter eyes turned heavenwards to seek the first traces of a false softening.”
That's what good literature is, I suppose. Truth and style.
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| Obadiah Youngblood, "Exeter Autumn" |
Phantom,
ReplyDeleteAgreed-that opening paragraph is hauntingly beautiful...
I must add I've always been a fan of Mr. Youngblood's paintings, but "Exeter Autumn" is by far my favorite..
Maud
Ms. Maud,
ReplyDeleteWell, if you drive in along Water Street, you might recognize that building, recently repainted and refurbished. I'll let Obadiah know you like it. I think he might have named it "Mother and Child" but he's into local names.
Phantom