Skip to main content

Popular Poplars (3 of 3)


Late afternoonm, at the school, Molong

Musing:
There's a certain slant of light by Emily Dickinson
"There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.

Comments

  1. Talk about keeping the best 'til last: this is breath-taking. The use you have made of the light is magical.

    And what can one say about Dickenson: she interleaves the two "lights" so dexterously that they meld in meaning.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow. The light made the scene magical. Gee, I love autumn light!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hope you stopped to twirl a time or two in the midst of all those fallen leaves, JE.
    I like the red rule. I used it in my Fuel posting but you have to look closely for one of them because Blogger has a tendency to wash things out.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This looks like a fine painting! Absolutely gorgeous! Great work, J.E.!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nice use of shadow geometry. Geometry of shadows?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Coolibah?

Is that a Coolibah tree beside the abandoned house? Every Australian knows about Coolibah trees because the bush ballad Waltzing Matilda is nigh on our unoffical national anthem but most of us live nowhere near the inland where they grow. Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong, Under the shade of a Coolibah tree, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled, You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me. Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me, And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled You'll come a Waltzing Matilda with me.

The end

I retire from the workforce this week and to celebrate have decided to retire my current blogs and start afresh with a single consolidated blog -  My Bright Field  - to record the delights of my new life adventure. If you are interested follow me over there.  I will still be Sweet Wayfaring and collecting Royal Hotels.  The delights I discover along the way will appear together with my gardens and towns where I live.

Brown streams and soft dim skies

I gave my husband a thick book on the history of Australian Art for Christmas. It documents just how long it took the artists to paint what they actually saw -- at the hands of early artists our wild Australian landscapes looked like rolling green English countryside. Today's photo has "that look" so I have referenced words from the poem describing England. It was Christmas Eve. We were camped by the Tumut River in the Snowy Mountains of NSW. A shady spot planted with exotic trees from the "old world" and with the soft burble of a swiftly flowing stream. Bliss after a hot afternoon drive. But the old world dies slowly, a hot roast for Christmas dinner followed by plum pudding is one of those traditions that just won't die. Knowing we were going to be on the move on Christmas Day we settled for having our traditional hot meal on Christmas Eve this year.