Looking at September

    from  THE GARDEN IN SEPTEMBER

Now thin mists temper the slow ripening beams

Of the September sun: his golden gleams

On gaudy flowers shine,that prank the rows

Of high-grown hollyhocks, and all tall shows

That Autumn flaunteth in his bushy bowers;

Where tomtits, hanging from the drooping heads

Of giant sunflowers, peck the nutty seeds;

And in the feathery aster bees on wing

Seize and set free the honied flowers,

Till thousand stars leap with their visiting:

While ever across the path mazily flit,

Unpiloted in the sun,

The dreamy butterflies

With dazzling colours powdered and soft glooms,

White black and crimson stripes, and peacock eyes,

Or on chance flowers sit,

With idle effort plundering one by one

The nectaries of deepest-throated blooms

                                                   Robert Bridges (1844 - 1930)

The 1st of the month marks the start of meteorological autumn, astronomically Autumn doesn't begin until Mabon or the  Autumn Equinox which is on the 23rd this year.

Fair on the first of September, fair for the whole month

The Anglo-Saxons called September Gertsmonarth, meaning the Barley Month

There are generally three consecutive windy days around the middle of the month, millers called these the windy days of barley harvest.

In this year of excess heat the wheat and barley harvest is long finished. There isn't any sugar beet growing close by this year but farmers who have grown it will be looking at a very small crop later. Maybe sugar will be yet another thing that will see a price rise in winter as well as flour and dairy products - all due to the heat and lack of rain.

Young September's Cornfield 1954

Oil on board

Alan Reynolds (1926-2014)