Lunaea Weatherstone's Blogue

The last sunny day

For the last few weeks, people here in Portland have given me the same comment about every sunny day: that it's the last one, the last sun we will see for many months. This is my first winter here, so I don't have the experience of what seems like endless dark wet days, but even so, the concept of "the last sunny day" has its appeal. As I said in my last blogue post, thinking that something soon will be gone adds an intensity to the senses, so I took my camera and my sun-attuned eyes out for a drive today, and here is some of what I saw (you can click on all images in this blogue to see them bigger):

The words from "Fare Well" by Walter de la Mare ran through my mind as I drank in this last sunny day:

Look thy last on all things lovely,

Every hour. Let no night

Seal thy sense in deathly slumber

Till to delight

Thou have paid thy utmost blessing...

However many more sunny days are left -- in this season or in this life -- to look on all things lovely with eyes that truly see is surely a blessing.

Just one more delight to bless on this day, the magnificent mountain, wrapped in his mantle of snow:

Ah! Like gold...

This is the first autumn I've been surrounded by deciduous trees rather than evergreens, and the pageant of colored leaves has me dazzled. In previous years in California, there would often be one brilliant tree standing out against the dark green background, as if in a spotlight onstage, and that is its own kind of joy. Here in Portland the glory is everywhere, tapestries of trembling amber and russet and crimson and flame.

A few years ago I added a line in Elvish to one of my wrist tattoos: Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen (Ah! Like gold fall the leaves in the wind). It is from the poem Namárië (Farewell), also known as Galadriel's Lament, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I meant it as a reminder to see the beauty in time's passage, and to let the knowledge of loss and endings bring the present blessings into sharper focus. This autumn I am seeing that poem vividly all around me, as chill gusts of wind send the golden leaves swirling. I want to clasp the gorgeousness to me, hold it, preserve it somehow, but Nature knows better. There is no art that can capture this joy, distilled with a drop of sorrow. There is only this moment, and the next moment, and the one after that. Who knows how many more there will be? Sí man i yulma nin enquantuva? Who now shall refill the cup for me? The Goddess has filled it, filled it to overflowing, and I drink with deep gratefulness the golden wine.