Autumn in (upstate) New York

A misty morning drive to Bovina for an egg sandwich takes me through this gentle upstate landscape. Rolling hills dotted with farmhouses, barns and the occasional Airstream, milk truck rolling down a country road…My crush on pink peonies and orange roses has given way to a deep love of russet, apple, pumpkin, the smell of woodsmoke, the sound of acorns dropping.

It's becoming an annual ritual for me to post this poem by Rilke. (2013, 2012)
The poem that gave me orchards in space.

                             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.

     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.

                               -Rainier Marie Rilke (translated by Robert Bly)

The best thing about blogging is the friends I've made, and I'm not going to call you virtual friends either. I love that New Zealand Amanda's posts about spring coincide with mine about fall, and that when I am shoveling snow she will be sharing her peonies. It truly is a world wide web, both infinitely large and comfortably small.

xo, Jen

orchards in space

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

as if orchards were dying high in space.

Those lines, from Rilke's poem, Autumn,

 kept running through my head this weekend in the Catskills.

I posted it last year too, when I was cleaning out the store
and we still had world's ugliest kitchen.

Four seasons ago. 

It feels like another life.

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.

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.

                               

                        -Rainier Marie Rilke (translated by Robert Bly)

Catskills Weekend

looking down the driveway

My weekend was mostly work--cleaning out the store.

 Many things to the thrift store, others to sell on Etsy, to keep, to give as gifts. 

 But there were autumn leaves, everywhere.

Morning coffee by the waterfall.

A visit to a customer to see the soapstone counters in her kitchen. 

This magnificent barn is on her property.

Her charming yellow farmhouse in the distance.

Her pond, thick with water lilies,

 where she holds skating parties in the winter.

Why the sudden interest in soapstone? I'm saying goodbye to the world's ugliest kitchen. Every surface covered with laminate the color of Silly Putty. Tiles the color of Silly Putty, walls and molding the color of Silly Putty. After ten years of this (granted, only on weekends) we are treating ourselves to a new kitchen.

Soon the hammock will come down, and winter will be in sight. 

                                          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.

     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.

                               -Rainier Marie Rilke (translated by Robert Bly)