An old, gnarly red mulberry tree (Morus rubra) lives on.
Decatur Legacy Park
City of Decatur, Georgia, USA.
26 June 2026.
A January pine tree on Stone Mountain.
Stone Mountain Park: DeKalb County, Georgia, USA.
16 January 2017.
Looking back through the portfolio can occasionally reveal a hidden gem, such as this painterly arboreal portrait. Well done, nine-year-younger Thomas!
Freddie Hubbard: Karioka (composition by Kenny Dorham)
Album: Goin' Up (Label: Blue Note (recorded 1960; released 1961)
A municipal golf course, as seen from the Stone Mountain Trail in Candler Park of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. 21 March 2025.
There were no logging roads or mountains in the parkland of this cemetery...but there were a creek and a culvert, hilly inclines, winter woods, a crossing of paths...and, considering the solemnity of the surroundings, places, like this, where one could quietly contemplate the feel of the earth underfoot.
Decatur Cemetery: City of Decatur, Georgia, USA. 25 January 2025.
Lunaria annua —commonly known as annual honesty, dollar plant, honesty, lunaria, money plant, moneywort, moonwort, silver dollar— is a species of flowering plant in the cabbage and mustard family (Brassicaceae). It is native to southern Europe but is cultivated throughout the temperate world.— Wikipedia.
The plant grows up to 3 feet tall (90 cm). In spring and summer, it bears terminal racemes [short stalks] of white or violet flowers. The fruits appear in midsummer. They are paper-thin, flat, silver dollar-sized fruits, called siliques, that become white-translucent with age, resembling a full moon or coin, hence some of the common names of the plant. Another common name, 'honesty,' relates to the translucence of the plant's silique membranes, which 'truthfully' reveal their contents.
— North Carolina Cooperative Extension.
i am afraid of what happenswhen it stops storming this way roundwhen the clouds have blown,and all that is left are me and my prayers for rain.i'm trying to enjoy the thunder while it lasts,but it's hard not to miss a storm before it leaves.— Ryan Jones
a bop for rayden
The gardens of our lives
Were our Family and the Arts.
We live on -
While our precious legacies
Continue to bloom and flourish.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;
Ever drifting down the stream
Lingering in the golden gleam
Life, what is it but a dream?
— Lewis Carroll
So gradual in those summers was the going— W.S. Merwin: The Speed of Light.
of the age it seemed that the long days setting out
when the stars faded over the mountains were not
leaving us even as the birds woke in full song and the dew
glittered in the webs it appeared then that the clear morning
opening into the sky was something of ours
to have and keep and that the brightness we could not touch
and the air we could not hold had come to be there all the time
for us and would never be gone and that the axle
we did not hear was not turning when the ancient car
coughed in the roofer’s barn and rolled out echoing
first thing into the lane and the only tractor
in the village rumbled and went into its rusty
mutterings before heading out of its lean-to
into the cow pats and the shadow of the lime tree
we did not see that the swallows flashing and the sparks
of their cries were fast in the spokes of the hollow
wheel that was turning and turning us taking us
all away as one with the tires of the baker’s van
where the wheels of bread were stacked like days in calendars
coming and going all at once we did not hear
the rim of the hour in whatever we were saying
or touching all day we thought it was there and would stay
it was only as the afternoon lengthened on its
dial and the shadows reached out farther and farther
from everything that we began to listen for what
might be escaping us and we heard high voices ringing
the village at sundown calling their animals home
and then the bats after dark and the silence on its road
In 1948, my Nana and my mother, then a young lady, were on their way, by train, from Brooklyn to visit relatives in Chicago. They stopped for a train change in Cleveland. A porter approached, offering to carry their bags. "What do you think of the Indians," he asked my mother. "You have Indians in Cleveland?" she innocently asked, surprised. In disgust, the porter put down their bags and walked away.
The Cleveland (baseball) Indians would go on to win the World Series that year, defeating the Boston Braves. It would be, in fact, the last season in which Cleveland would win the World Series (until?).
On whether they or their opponent, the Chicago Cubs —last winners of a World Series over a century ago, in 1908, long suffering under a caprine curse— win this October, I take no public stance. My beloved Washington Nationals were, after all, swatted away in the post-season (1924 being the last time they, in an earlier iteration, won the world championship).
And yet, I will watch and root against history. And I will take note that today, Game 1 of the 112th Fall Classic, falls on St. Crispin Day (outfielder Coco Crisp, notwithstanding), a feastday for which William Shakespeare —possibly with the ghost-writing assistance of Christopher Marlowe— penned what might be the ultimate pep talk ... if not originally for a baseball game.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in America [my apology, Mr. Shakespeare] now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
I trod upon my carpet of gold,While the reds, the browns, and the enduring greensBespeckle the pathway beneath my feet,Casting autumn's prism in all its glory.—Verse by Genovaite Ambraziejus Cizauskas, my mother.
At the instant of the September equinox, the midday sun will be shining straight overhead at the equator. As the September equinox sun crosses the equator, going from north to south, it’ll signal the beginning of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere. On the day of the equinox, the sun rises due east and sets due west all over the world, with everyone worldwide receiving the same amount of day and night. By October, however, that’ll change dramatically. By then, the sun will rise noticeably south of due east and will set noticeably south of due west. That’ll mean shorter days and longer nights for the Northern Hemisphere, yet longer days and shorter nights in the Southern Hemisphere.—EarthSky
As the autumn days grow shorter, the reduced light triggers chemical changes in deciduous plants causing a corky wall to form between the twig and the leaf stalk. This "abscission layer" eventually causes the leaf to drop off in the breeze. As the corky cells multiply, they seal off the vessels that supply the leaf with nutrients and water and also block the exit vessels, trapping simple sugars in the leaves. The combination of reduced light, lack of nutrients, and no water add up to the death of the pigment chlorophyll, the "green" in leaves.—The Farmer's Almanac
Once the green is gone, two other pigments show their bright faces. These pigments, carotene (yellow) and anthocyanin (red), exist in the leaf all summer but are masked by the chlorophyll. (The browns in autumn leaves are the result of tannin, a chemical that exists in many leaves, especially oaks.)
Sugar trapped in autumn leaves by the abscission layer is largely responsible for the vivid color. Some additional anthocyanins are also manufactured by sunlight acting on the trapped sugar. This is why the foliage is so sparkling after several bright fall days and more pastel during rainy spells. In general, a set growing season followed by a dry autumn filled with sunny days and cool, frostless nights produces the most vibrant palette of fall colors.
"Beer", a poem for today, by George Arnold (1834–1865), with verse a good measure more florid than its unadorned title.
Here,
With my beer
I sit,
While golden moments flit:
Alas!
They pass
Unheeded by:
And, as they fly,
I,
Being dry,
Sit, idly sipping here
My beer.
O, finer far
Than fame, or riches, are
The graceful smoke-wreathes of this cigar!
Why
Should I
Weep, wail, or sigh?
What if luck has passed me by?
What if my hopes are dead,—
My pleasures fled?
Have I not still
My fill
Of right good cheer,—
Cigars and beer
Go, whining youth,
Forsooth!
Go, weep and wail,
Sigh and grow pale,
Weave melancholy rhymes
On the old times,
Whose joys like shadowy ghosts appear,
But leave me to my beer!
Gold is dross,—
Love is loss,—
So, if I gulp my sorrows down,
Or see them drown
In foamy draughts of old nut-brown,
Then do wear the crown,
Without the cross!
Born in 1834 in New York City, George Arnold once had aspirations of becoming an artist before deciding to devote his time to literature. A popular author, journalist, and poet of the mid-19th century, he wrote for various publications and periodicals, including the Saturday Press, Vanity Fair, and Weekly Review under the name “McArone,” which brought him recognition as a humorist.
In addition to humorous pieces, Arnold also wrote poetry and published books on children’s games. He was best known for his poem “The Jolly Old Pedagogue” as well as the McArone Papers, which he wrote under his pseudonym.
Arnold was also a patron of Pfaff’s Beer Cellar, a popular watering hole for a group of New York bohemian writers and artists, including Walt Whitman.
Since 1997, Cask Marque has been ensuring that the cask ale you drink in pubs in the U.K. has been in perfect condition. Qualified ass...
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