Labor Day

September 6, 2021

Columbus, OH

It's the unofficial end of summer. Labor Day once was the time when we put away our white shoes and our white pants (somehow white shirts remained) until Memorial Day. I still do that. No more white shoes, no more sandals for the most part. Some part of me, even beyond attire, moves into autumn mode.

This weekend I put out many of our decorative fall items around the house. There even seemed to be a change in the way the air smells in the mornings.

A.E. Housman's poem "Tell Me Not Here, It Needs Not Saying" is from his last collection in 1922. I love the description of September as soft. I'm hoping to enjoy these soft days as they are offered.

Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays, For she and I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways.

On russet floors, by waters idle, The pine lets fall its cone; The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing In leafy dells alone; And traveller’s joy beguiles in autumn Hearts that have lost their own.

On acres of the seeded grasses The changing burnish heaves; Or marshalled under moons of harvest Stand still all night the sheaves; Or beeches strip in storms for winter And stain the wind with leaves.

Possess, as I possessed a season, The countries I resign, Where over elmy plains the highway Would mount the hills and shine, And full of shade the pillared forest Would murmur and be mine.

For nature, heartless, witless nature, Will neither care nor know What stranger’s feet may find the meadow And trespass there and go, Nor ask amid the dews of morning If they are mine or no.

A.E. Housman