Feather Canyons Everywhere

Joni* sang them bittersweet
Pinned her passions to those sunny stacks
Sixties summer clouds in fleet
Cathedrals of confessions

Vapour can't be cabined quaint
Clouds reinvent themselves by stealth
Beyond our metaphor power to paint
Squish or squeeze into boxy verses

They rephrase us and resketch
We gaze into their radiant rhythms
We squint and shade, crick-necked
While they risk to juggle rainbows

Between their fingers hold air blue,
Sunsets of apricot, bent birds homing,
Letting the wind think itself Picasso
Serendipity into symbol smudging.



If you love clouds as I do, you can join with others who feel the same here> The Cloud Appreciation Society

*Joni Mitchell, Canadian singer, songwriter, painter and musician who wrote the song "Both Sides Now" (1970, which won her a Grammy) from which my poem's title is taken. You can listen to it here>  Joni Mitchell sings "Both Sides Now" (1970)

Falling for Autumn: Or is it St Martin's Summer?

Reality check: is this an Indian Summer? - Polly Curtis in today's "The Guardian" online

I reckon many of us have been debating this. Is this or isn't it what we used to call an "Indian Summer"?


The UK Meteorological Office has slapped our wrists several times in recent days.


We can't call this an Indian Summer they say.


Indian Summers can't happen in September, we learned to our surprise. They have to occur after the first frosts near the end of October or early November.

 This, in spite of having spent our lives in blissful ignorance of the fact we needed permission to celebrate an autumn warm spell in whatever way we chose, under whatever name, whenever we noticed it. After all, surely it's the public's own words and traditions that put any concept into the culture in the first place? This delightful phenomenon was called an Indian Summer long before the Met Office, or the Governments who fund it, had us in a headlock over semantics!

The Guardian's Polly Curtis in the article linked above, quotes one of the earliest uses of the term, from Frenchman John de Crevecoeur, in 1778: 

'Sometimes the rain is followed by an interval of calm and warmth which is called the Indian Summer; its characteristics are a tranquil atmosphere and general smokiness. Up to this epoch the approaches of winter are doubtful; it arrives about the middle of November, although snows and brief freezes often occur long before that date.'

It's been suggested the phrase is rather a disparaging reference to Native Americans perpetrated by the incoming European settlers, who branded the native dwellers as untrustworthy for breaking "treaties" with the invaders of their territories. Hence the unseasonal warm spell was deemed to be similarly breaking the settled pattern of the weather getting colder as the winter solstice approached.

 I, for one, wouldn't be comfortable to use any term, whether deemed "non-PC" or not that could cause offence to those with a reason to feel aggrieved by certain loaded phrases. But it seems far from clear that this is the origin of the name for this meteorological phenomenon. The jury seems to be out. Or not to have realised they had been convened.


Wikipedia confidently states here:

Depending on latitude and elevation, the phenomenon can occur in the Northern Hemisphere between late September and mid November. 


In many ways, the Wiki is the modern voice of popular cultural understanding, for all its limitations. So late September doesn't seem disqualified here! Wherever the Met Office has arbitrarily decided to draw a line in the sand.

Hoar Frost - St. Martin's Summer (Indian Summer) by British painter Alfred Sisley 1874 (Oil on Canvas. Private Collection)

Here in England, an autumnal warm snap was formerly called a "St Martin's Summer", until gradually by the 20th century, along with "OK" and  unfamiliar spellings and pronunciations of the English language picked up from GIs and Hollywood talkies, the phrase "Indian Summer" overtook older traditional expressions.

Looking at the numerous different names for the phenomenon from round the globe shows there's a huge collection of terms we can choose from. Some maybe less than flattering, many just sublime:

Little Summer of the Quince, Old Ladies' Summer, Summer of Old Ladies, Crone's Summer (non-PC for self-respecting modern women!), Gypsy Summer, Gypsy Christmas, St Theresa's Summer, All Hallown Summer, Return of Summer, Flashback of Summer, or the Chinese phrase meaning "a tiger in autumn", humankind has always wanted to speak about it and celebrate it!

Whatever it should be called, it's a joy when it happens, in my book. Because it's here, it's hot, it's glorious! Beautiful soft, golden days, melting frigid  dawns and evenings after the tilt of the autumnal equinox. Lighting up the dying leaves and showing off their twilight splendour. Giving us hope that it's not so very long, after all, till spring.

All hail, English Summer!

Hailstorm in Yorkshire, England at noon 19th July 2011

I love a good storm. Yesterday lunchtime's was truly epic! The video clip on the link above taken on my cellphone doesn't do it justice!


First the clouds took on a a smoky shade, the colour of a drenched woodpigeon's neck. Then a few tickles of electric and chuckles of static and the party kicked off!


A huge thunderclap rattled the windows in the little conservatory where I was sitting. The rain began lashing down in diaphanous sheets of sting and fizz. What one minute was liquid bouncing up from the startled concrete patio, was the next transmuted into rattling white pearl-sized hailstones. Within a few minutes the lawn was white over with nuggets of diamond.

The drains couldn't cope with the sudden downpour and before I could poke my mobile phonecam out the back door, a flash flood three inches deep was pooled along the edge of the patio right round to the side gate. I did a mental inventory of boat-building materials I might have to hand!

Before I could do my Noah bit, though, I heard an ominous dripping from between the edge of the conseravtory roof and the spot where it joins onto the back wall of the house. Towels and buckets in place I watched the show going on all around!


Even the feeding birds and the squirrel enjoying the nut hopper had run for cover! The sound of the hail ringing on the roof shut out everything but the white luminous noise of the storm. I got a little footage of the hail and managed to wrestle the door shut again against the capriciously playful elements. I found myself mentally quoting lines from one of my very favourite poems, Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" inspired by his living not far from here, in Lincolnshire:

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,

Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

 

 

A blast was certainly being crammed against my door! But it left as quickly as it had arrived. An hour later, after a further quick shower, the sun was glittering calmly in the puddles and the balmy air hugged me with a reassuring woolly kiss as I ventured out. The dripping stopped, the carpet dried and by teatime, the ground was dry and the grass was only dusted white with clover.

 

The sun has got his hat on...

 

 

I always feel blessed to enjoy days like this. Also blessed to open the mail this morning and find a rare letter from my landlords in London saying they're about to survey my rented house. This month or next they're sending somebody to take an inventory of maintenance tasks that they may need to tackle in the future, funds permitting.

 

Though I'm not holding my breath, I should probably mention the conservatory roof when they're in the area!

 

I often wonder if the amount of the national budget spent on the Met Office is wholly justified. I admit that yesterday, for once, we were warned!