AUTUMN'S GIFTS

 Sunshine, fluffy white clouds and a leaf of a different color.

 Red, green, orange and gold, Autumn's offerings graciously unfold

 A late bloomer, the Japanese Anemone, pristine against the darker colors, stands tall and lovely in the morning sun.

 Solomon's Seal, the lovely green is now a rich gold.

 The early morning rain drops hold tight to the spent leaves, sparkling like diamonds in the sun.

 A lone Maple leaf takes up residence on a mossy rock among a patch of unwanted buttercup foliage.

 Autumn wouldn't be the same without an array of cute little toadstools.

 Why is the last rose of summer always so appreciated? This one is still very fragrant. I wish I could bottle the aroma and save it.

When the wind howls around my house and the trees dance a new dance, when the rain pelts the windows and runs down the road in little riverlets, I think of things like chili and cornbread, homemade soup and in this case homemade corn chowder with lots of bacon and onion. YUM!

What is more Autumn than  spicy, hot apple pie?

This one is made from the fruit of the Gravenstein apple tree I played in when I was a girl, a long-long time ago.

Happy Autumn

~

WHAT I LIVE FOR

by George Linnaeus Banks

I live for those who love me, whose hearts are kind and true.

For the Heaven that smiles above me, and awaits my spirit too.

For all human ties that bind me, for the task by God assigned me,

For the bright hopes yet to find me, and the good that I can do.

I live to learn their story who suffered for my sake,

to emulate their glory, and follow in their wake.

Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages, the heroic of all ages,

Whose deeds crowd History's pages and Time's great volume make.

I live to hold communion with all that is divine,

To feel there is a union 'Twixt Nature's heart and mine,

To profit by affliction, reap truth from fields of fiction,

Grow wiser from conviction, and fulfil God's grand design.

I live to hail that season by gifted ones foretold,

When men shall live by reason and not alone by gold.

When man to man united, and every wrong thing righted,

The whole world shall be lighted as Eden was of old.

I live for those who love me, for those who know me true,

For the Heaven that smiles above me, and awaits my spirit too;

For the cause that lacks assistance, for the wrong that needs resistance,

For the future in the distance, and the good that I can do.

~*~

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