october

Again the wind
flakes gold-leaf from the trees
and the painting darkens—
as if a thousand penitents
kissed an icon
till it thinned
back to bare wood,
without diminishment.

Jane Hirshfield, "Autumn." The Paris Review, Issue no. 109 (Winter 1988).

*

Related: "It's autumn and Frank O'Hara is standing there, yelling at leaves."

*

Horace Pippin, The Park Bench/Man on a Bench. 1943. The Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Wish I could see this exhibit on view there of six Pippin paintings.)

having a coke with you

Via R4TH.

the time of cold air and loud parties and big expense

There's no holly, but there is
the glass and granite towers
and the white stone lions
and the pale violet clouds. And
the great tree of balls in
Rockefeller Plaza is public.

Christmas is green and general
like all great works of the
imagination, swelling from minute
private sentiments in the desert,
a wreath around our intimacy
like children's voices in a park.

For red there is our blood
which, like your smile, must be
protected from spilling into
generality by secret meanings,
the lipstick of life hidden
in a handbag against violations.

Christmas is the time of cold air
and loud parties and big expense,
but in our hearts flames flicker
answeringly, as on old-fashioned
trees. I would rather the house
burn down than our flames go out.

Frank O'Hara, 'Christmas Card to Grace Hartigan'

Merry Christmas.

Photo via Old Chum.