1
So far away August green as it yet is. They say the sun still comes up
o’mornings and it’s harvest moon now. Always one leaf at the peak twig
swirling, swirling and apples rotting in the ditch.
2
My wife’s uncle went to school with Amundsen. After he, Amundsen,
returned from the south pole there was a Scandinavian dinner, which bored
Amundsen like a boyhood friend. There was a young woman at his table,
silent and aloof from the rest. She left early and he restless at some
impalpable delay apologized suddenly and went off with two friends, his
great, lean bulk twitching agilely. One knew why the poles attracted him.
Then my wife’s mother told me the same old thing, how a girl in their
village jilted him years back. But the girl at the supper! Ah—that comes
later when we are wiser and older.
3
What can it mean to you that a child wears pretty clothes and speaks
three languages or that its mother goes to the best shops? It means: July
has good need of his blazing sun. But if you pick one berry from the ash
tree I’d not know it again for the same no matter how the rain washed.
Make my bed of witchhazel twigs, said the old man, since they bloom on
the brink of winter.
* * * * *
_There is neither beginning nor end to the imagination but it delights
in its own seasons reversing the usual order at will. Of the air of the
coldest room it will seem to build the hottest passions. Mozart would
dance with his wife, whistling his own tune to keep the cold away and
Villon ceased to write upon his Petit Testament only when the ink was
frozen. But men in the direst poverty of the imagination buy finery and
indulge in extravagant moods in order to piece out their lack with other
matter._