Mrs. Teabody on an Autumn Evening
Good
Evening, Gentle Reader from the gloriously autumnal mountain where
Mrs. Teabody can finally announce with some degree of hopefulness,
October
is here.
Not everyone is in love with these whirling winds, leaden skies,
cooler temperatures and the accompanying shivers, but there are many
marvelous things about autumn, not the least of which is that
beautiful garbage of Nature—autumn leaves. Poets rhapsodize about
this colorful death. The French invented the song “Les feu
Mesmortes” which became “Autumn Leaves” first made popular in
the United States by Andy Williams who at the height of his
popularity could have sung the Affordable Care Act and had everyone
happily humming along.
At
the end of this little message you will find links to five very
different covers and Mrs. Teabody hopes you will find one of them to
your liking.
Turns out this October standard has been covered by literally almost
everyone who is anyone—everyone from Dolly Parton to Ferrante and
Teicher and if you know how to pronounce that last duo, then welcome
to old cootdom. Would you care for some Cracker Jack?
On
days like today after the storms have beaten the porch boxes into an
unrecoverable state of collapse, Mr. Teabody floats along on the
fringes of the gardening enterprise at Chez Teabody wearing a gloomy
visage. All the seed pods have been gathered and labeled and boxes
have been found that will winter house the bulbs from the cannas that
have offered such bright crimson flags for several months. Cone
flowers and peony foliage have been rendered husk like. A few dozen
blooms straggle on the rose bushes. The hollies -- all green-leaved
and bright berried seem to taunt all their struggling neighbors. The
leggy impatiens grow impatient for their next transition. Like it or
not, the garden is dying. And isn’t it the hardest thing in the
world by times to let go, to say Farewell to something, to someone
that you have loved so well? One of Mrs. Teabody’s favorite poems
is irrevocably tied with this most melancholy of seasons and it
follows:
Spring & Fall: to a young child
~
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Margaret,
are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wÃll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wÃll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
Yes,
there is mourning for the un-leaving, for the loss of vitality in the
once green and flowering plant. Change, while inevitable, is seldom
without a degree of fall out. Change can be as unnerving as getting
behind the wheel of a car one has never driven before; it can be as
disheartening as realizing that someone has eaten the last crust of
bread and that slice of toast that would have paired so well with
some wild blueberry jam will not be tasted—not today anyway. Change
can leave the heart longing for the familiar, the beloved, the
reliable, the expected, the known. Mrs. Teabody knows a little girl
who refused to take off her dress at the end of the day because she
wanted to wear it forever so that the next day would be exactly the
same. To save Time in a bottle . . .
The
very essence of life is change. Embrace it. A brave friend heals in
a distant hospital because change has meant the end of her disease. Blank canvases will change into pictures through bold brush strokes; words will dance across the page in happy company with each other changing their arrangement into a poem, spools of thread and bits of cloth will change into a comforting quilt . And in the garden, the withered stalks with their dulled thorns and languishing blooms will gurgle and spit and re-foilate in just a few months’ time. So mourn the autumn leaves but don’t hesitate to open your heart to all the glorious surprises of Nature in its next season.
The
“Really? Jerry lee Lewis? Version:
The “We sing really
well” Coasters version:
The one that made it an
inescapable part of Boomers’ soundtrack, Andy Williams
The
ever-groovy Eric Clapton
The contemporary Diana
Krall
Oh and Mrs. Teabody would love to hear which version is your favorite.
Diana Krall, with Andy Williams a close second...
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