Writers' Pantry #36: Change of Season

Hello wordsmiths, this is Rosemary.  And we're in September already – so soon! Here, it's the beginning of Spring. For most of you it's the start of Autumn – or Fall, if you live in the USA. (We can't call Autumn 'Fall' in Australia. Most of our native trees are evergreen and don't shed their leaves.)

So we're right at the point of change.

It's that for me personally, too. I get to join in the prompting now, for the first time – whether devising some of the specific topics for our Weekly Scribblings, or hosting the Writers' Pantry where you yourselves decide the actual subject matter. I'm excited! And I hope to still give you a little flavour of the old Friday posts while I'm at it.

Meanwhile I'd rather not look too far ahead yet, to Summer or Winter as the case may be, but focus on the gentler seasons just beginning. At least I hope they'll turn out to be gentle for us all.

Here's one person who has quite a gritty take on it – but he's thinking of the extremes. I'm fascinated to find that Shel Silverstein was a poet too, and even a maker of songs; I only knew him as a fiction writer. It's quite a persona he adopts here, to make a case for change itself.

Changing Of The Seasons

Oh the changing of the seasons it's a pretty thing to see
And though I find this balmy weather pleasin'
There's the wind come from tomorrow and I hear it callin' me
And I'm bound for the changing of the seasons
Oh it's blowin' in Chicago and it's snowin' up in Maine
And the Islands to the south are warm and sunny
And I've got to feel the earth shake and I gotta feel the rain
And I've got to know a taste of more than honey

So don't ask me where I'm goin' or how long I'm gonna be away
Don't make me give you all the hollow reasons
I'll think of you like summer and I might be back some day
When my heart miss the changing of the seasons
Oh it's blowin' in Chicago...
[ guitar ]

Oh it's nothing that you said and it ain't nothing that you done
And I wish I could explain you why I'm leavin'
But there's some men need the winter and there's some men need the sun
And there's some men need the changing of the seasons
Yeah it's blowin' in Chicago...

– Shel Silverstein (1930-1999)

 

Forthcoming:

For next Wednesday, Magaly invites us to scribble poetry or prose inspired by the phrase “a phoenix first must burn”. Go literally or figuratively. The choice is always yours.

And now:

Dear wordsmiths, please regale us with prose or poetry, old or new, on any topic of your choice. If it's prose – which can be fiction or non-fiction – please keep it to 369 words or even fewer, not including title. (Sometimes I think that's going to be impossible, but I always find that when I pare something back I improve it.) Link to your post – just one, please – on Mister Linky, and enjoy each other's offerings.


Material shared here is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings and images remain the property of the copyright owners, usually the authors. (Older poems may be out of copyright). The photo of windy Chicago is from Unsplash; with thanks to  Max Bender.