Harvest-time in Texas
Thoughts beneath grey skies and yellowing leaves (with Gerard Manley Hopkins and Joanna Newsom)
Harvest-time has come to East Texas. The texture of the world has changed as the late Summer’s last gasps are swept away by the Autumn breeze. Some folks with hearts perhaps too small say that there are no seasons in Texas: just oppressive Summer that hurdles into a damp and dismal Winter. I should rebuke such ignorance, but I find myself distracted by the burgundy and yellow leaves that damask the smooth grey sky behind.
It is Fall—itself and nothing else. The air tastes crisper, the cooler mornings herald the warmer afternoon’s sway, the rains return. We have too often blindfolded ourselves: our cities stripped of trees show no color, buildings insulated and conditioned let in none of the world’s warmth or chill. If there are no seasons in Texas, it is because we have shut ourselves in from the world. Throw wide the doors and windows: hurrah in the Harvest.
Taste and see. Attend. “It is all a purchase, all is a prize.” Step outside, feel the rain drops, taste the breezes. Be cold, betimes, or wet, or (yes, sometimes) sweltering. It is for you. A gift.
We could stand for a century,
staring, with our heads cocked,
in the broad daylight, at this thing:
Joy,
landlocked in bodies that don’t keep —
dumbstruck with the sweetness of being,
till we don’t be.
Told: take this.
And eat this.
What will you find with ears to hear and eyes to see? “There lives the dearest freshness deep down things”, deep within, through the slats between sere leaves: there catch just a glimpse of a mystery. It “plays in ten thousand places” if you will only search for it. Take and eat: taste and see that the Lord is good.
This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
Christ home. Christ, and his mother, and all his hallows.