How the Sun Set · 365 Project

How the Sun Set by Rondi Aastrup · 365 Project

I'll tell you how the sun rose,--

A ribbon at a time.

The steeples swam in amethyst,

The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,

The bobolinks begun.

Then I said to myself softly,

"That must have been the sun!"

But how he set I know not

There seemed a purple stile

Which little yellow boys and girls

Were climbing all the while

Til when they reached the other side,

A dominie in gray

Put gently up the evening bars

And led the flock away

~Emily Dickinson

Nobody

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring bog!

Emily Dickinson's little poem about publishing has always made me smile. I didn't realize the full truth of the poem, though, until I spent a night in Camden, Maine, recently trying to sleep through the public declarations of a pond full of frogs!

ALL NIGHT LONG they were croaking their names to the admiring bog (in this case a lovely lily pond outside of my hotel room. Even with the windows closed, I heard them loud and clear. All night long! In the morning, I took my camera outside and captured all I could see. In the end, I was the one admiring =)

The name -- of it -- is "Autumn"

-- by Emily Dickinson --

The name -- of it -- is "Autumn" --
The hue -- of it -- is Blood --
An Artery -- upon the Hill --
A Vein -- along the Road --

Great Globules -- in the Alleys --
And Oh, the Shower of Stain --
When Winds -- upset the Basin --
And spill the Scarlet Rain --

It sprinkles Bonnets -- far below --
It gathers ruddy Pools --
Then -- eddies like a Rose -- away --
Upon Vermilion Wheels --