Happy New Years: Egyptian (8/29) & Byzantine (9/1)!

Hello everyone – 

This week, we remember the ancient Egyptian New Year’s Day (TODAY, 8/29) and the medieval Byzantine New Year’s Day (Thursday, 9/1). Summer is definitely on the wane, and fall is about to arrive (but not quite yet). Here are some poems that I recall from my elementary school days that encapsulate my thoughts and memories of this amazing time of year!

 

“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.

 

“Fall Is Here” by Helen H. Moore

Fall is here. Another year is coming to an end.

Summer’s finished, summer’s gone, winter’s round the bend.

Fall is piles of crunchy leaves, orange, gold, and red.

Fall is sweaters with long sleeves and blankets on the bed.

Fall is football, fall is pumpkins, fall’s where summer ends;

And fall is coming back to school, and seeing all my friends.

 

“A Calendar of Sonnets: September”

By Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

O golden month! How high thy gold is heaped!

The yellow birch-leaves shine like bright coins strung

On wands; the chestnut's yellow pennons tongue

To every wind its harvest challenge. Steeped

In yellow, still lie fields where wheat was reaped;

And yellow still the corn sheaves, stacked among

The yellow gourds, which from the earth have wrung

Her utmost gold. To highest boughs have leaped

The purple grape, -- last thing to ripen, late

By very reason of its precious cost.

O Heart, remember, vintages are lost

If grapes do not for freezing night-dews wait.

Think, while thou sunnest thyself in Joy's estate,

Mayhap thou canst not ripen without frost!

 

“September” by Helen Hunt Jackson

The golden-rod is yellow;

The corn is turning brown;

The trees in apple orchards

With fruit are bending down.

The gentian’s bluest fringes

Are curling in the sun;

In dusty pods the milkweed

Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest,

In every meadow nook;

And asters by the brook-side

Make asters in the brook.

From dewy lanes at morning

The grapes’ sweet odors rise;

At noon the roads all flutter

With yellow butterflies.

By all these lovely tokens

September days are here,

With summer’s best of weather,

And autumn’s best of cheer.

But none of all this beauty

Which floods the earth and air

Is unto me the secret

Which makes September fair.

‘Tis a thing which I remember;

To name it thrills me yet:

One day of one September

I never can forget.

 

WPA Poster from 1940 (Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

Happy September – and Happy Reading to one and all! 😊

 

Rob