Seasonally inappropriate poem for Monday

[highlyeccentric]

Today I wrote a little bit and then, in a sudden brainwave, completely re-organised my book plan for the current project, and wrote a dummy proposal to prove it was feasible. Sudden and unexpected productivity! And then I flung my dinner to the floor, on the one day I didn't have a dropcloth in the kitchen because it's being washed. Swings and roundabouts.

Autumn Day
Rainer Maria Rilke
trans. Stephen Miller

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.

Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulfillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
will sit, read, write long letters through the evening,
and wander along the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.

Comments

[sfred]

Productivity is weird!

Also the English language is weird. Dropcloth = floorcloth?

[highlyeccentric]

I. Now I'm questioning my usage. I think it shouldn't be one word. Drop cloth. That's definitely the word for the sheet you put down when you're painting walls, and that is the approach I take to 'existing in a kitchen'.

[sfred]

Ah!

[reynardo]

Makes sense here - the days are getting cooler and wetter.

[highlyeccentric]

So they are.