Back to School: Transitioning from Summer to Autumn

Hello everyone –

School is almost back in session as the month of August has passed the halfway mark. It’s a great time for making new friends and pursuing new opportunities – and for reminiscing about our own school days, too.

Forty-seven years ago next week, I started Kindergarten in Bethalto, Illinois. Mrs. Marie Meyer was my teacher, and I was in the “morning session” of Kindergarten, when Kindergarten only lasted half a day. (There was an “afternoon session” of Kindergarten at my school, too, but never the twain did meet.) During my “Silver Jubilee” (25^th anniversary) of Kindergarten matriculation (in the fall of 1998), I had the honor to meet Megan Marie Meyer, Mrs. Meyer’s granddaughter, who had just entered the University of Illinois as a freshling. The legacy of learning – and remembering – goes ever on and on!

To commemorate the 47^th anniversary of my Kindergarten matriculation, here are three poems about the transition from summer to autumn – and the seasons of life that they mirror.

 

“Back to School” by Helen H. Moore

Summer's almost gone now,

And on the streets we see

School buses filled with children

Where ice cream trucks should be.

 

“A Calendar of Sonnets: August” by Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects' aimless industry.
Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry
Of color to conceal her swift decrease.
Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece
A blossom, and lay bare her poverty.
Poor middle-aged summer! Vain this show!
Whole fields of Golden-Rod cannot offset
One meadow with a single violet;
And well the singing thrush and lily know,
Spite of all artifice which her regret
Can deck in splendid guise, their time to go!

 

“I Sit Beside the Fire” by J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

I sit beside the fire and think
Of all that I have seen
Of meadow-flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been;
 
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
In autumns that there were,
With morning mist and silver sun
And wind upon my hair.
 
I sit beside the fire and think
Of how the world will be
When winter comes without a spring
That I shall ever see.
 
For still there are so many things
That I have never seen:
In every wood in every spring
There is a different green.
 
I sit beside the fire and think
Of people long ago
And people who will see a world
That I shall never know.
 
But all the while I sit and think
Of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
And voices at the door.

 

Next time: a salute to ancient Egypt, in honor of the Egyptian New Year on August 29^th!

 

Until then –

Rob J