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August 7 - 22

Alexis and Kit bid farewell to summer and welcome in the harvest season in this episode, "the Beginning of Autumn," featuring nostalgic summer fruits, a soundscape of the Dog Days of summer, and an awe-inspiring meteor shower.  In "Hiro's Corner," we take a look at a special seasonal fish.

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.

The Beginning of Autumn
Spotify Companion Playlist

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Poems Featured in this Episode

An August Wood Road by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

When the partridge coveys fly
In the birch-tops cool and high;When the dry cicadas twang
Where the purpling fir-cones hang;
When the bunch-berries emboss—Scarlet beads—the roadside moss;
Brown with shadows, bright with sun,
All day long till day is done
Sleeps in murmuring solitude
The worn old road that threads the wood.
In its deep cup—grassy, cool—Sleeps the little roadside pool;
Sleeps the butterfly on the weed,
Sleeps the drifted thistle-seed.
Like a great and blazing gem,
Basks the beetle on the stem.
Up and down the shining rays
Dancing midges weave their maze.
High among the moveless boughs,
Drunk with day, the night-hawks drowse.
Far up, unfathomably blue,
August's heaven vibrates through.
The old road leads to all things good;
The year's at full, and time's at flood.

*

August’s Crown by Michelle L. Thieme

Whilst August yet wears her golden crown,
Ripening fields lush- bright with promise;
Summer waxes long, then wanes, quietly passing
Her fading green glory on to riotous Autumn.

*

Excerpt from the Illiad by Homer

Priam saw him first, with his old man's eyes,
A single point of light on Troy's dusty plain.
Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky
On summer nights, star of stars,
Orion's Dog they call it, brightest
Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat
And fevers to suffering humanity.
Achilles' bronze gleamed like this as he ran.

*

August by John Updike

The sprinkler twirls
The summer wanes
The pavement wears
Popsicle stains
The playground grass
Is worn to dust
The weary swings
Creak, creak with rust
The trees are bored
With being green
Some people leave the local scene
And go to seaside bungalows
And nearly take off all theirs clothes

*
Fog by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

*

autumn fog--
the river beach's pinks
barely visible

— Issa

*

Color of the wind
Sparsely planted
Autumn garden

— Matsuo Basho

*

Autumn wind - 
More transparent than water
Fins of a fish

— Mitsuhashi Takajo

*

Ode to the Onion, by Pablo Neruda

Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.
You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone
and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.

*

Canning Time, by Edward Albert Guest

There's a wondrous smell of spices
In the kitchen,
Most bewitchin';
There are fruits cut into slices
That just set the palate itchin';
There's the sound of spoon on platter
And the rattle and the clatter;
And a bunch of kids are hastin'
To the splendid joy of tastin':
It's the fragrant time of year
When fruit-cannin' days are here.

*

The Cardinal Flower by John Burroughs

Like peal of a bugle
Upon the still night,
So flames her deep scarlet
In dim forest light.
A heart-throb of color
Lit up the dim nook,
A dash of deep scarlet
The dark shadows shook.
Thou darling of August,
Thou flame of her flame,
‘Tis only bold autumn
Thy ardor can tame.

*

Purple so deep as to make them black: grapes!

—Masaoka Shiki

*

Just delivered
From my hometown
Tasseled grapes

芝宮須磨子

*

a cricket rides
unsteadily...
horse-shaped eggplant

— Issa

*

Horse-shaped melons
and ancestors
worshiped together

— Issa

*

Horse-shaped melon --
"Gimme! Gimme!" cries
the crying child

— Issa

*

Tanko Bushi Song

The moon, has come out,
Oh, the moon is out, heave ho
Over Miike Coal Mine has the moon come out.
The chimney is so high,
I wonder if the moon chokes on the smoke...
Heave Ho!

*

one dies out
two die out
lanterns for the dead

— Issa

*

From "Summer Haibun" by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

There are not enough jam jars to can this summer sky at night. 
I want to spread those little meteors on a hunk of still-warm bread this winter.

*

Now my loneliness
following
the fireworks . . .
Look! A falling star!

— Masaoka Shiki

Beginning of Autumn Recipe

See original recipe here.

“Ripening Summer Crisp”

TOPPING

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup uncooked old-fashioned oats
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cold stick of butter cut into pieces

FILLING

3 medium (4 cups) tart cooking apples, peeled, sliced 1/8-inch
1 (6-ounce) package (1 1/4 cups) fresh blackberries
8 dried Mission figs, stems removed, chopped
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest

Instructions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F.