The October of Coincidences

October, the maiden of bright yellow tresses,
Loiters for love in these cool wildernesses;
Loiters, knee-deep, in the grasses, to listen,
Where dripping rocks gleam and the leafy pools glisten:
Then is the time when the water-moons splendid
Break with their gold, and are scattered or blended
Over the creeks, till the woodlands have warning
Of songs of the bell-bird and wings of the Morning.


Often I sit, looking back to a childhood,
Mixt with the sights and the sounds of the wildwood,
Longing for power and the sweetness to fashion,
Lyrics with beats like the heart-beats of Passion; -
Songs interwoven of lights and of laughters
Borrowed from bell-birds in far forest-rafters;
So I might keep in the city and alleys
The beauty and strength of the deep mountain valleys:
Charming to slumber the pain of my losses
With glimpses of creeks and a vision of mosses.

Verses 3 and 5 of the poem Bell Birds by Henry Kendall. 

I am so sorry for not posting last night!   You see, the situation was that I couldn't access Blogger for some inconceivable reason!  So I had all this time on my hands and couldn't even blog.  I was very frustrated. 

Anyway, yesterday I heard a friend reciting this poem to someone, and the line "October, the maiden of bright yellow tresses" and it just gave me lovely, pleasant tingling thrills.  Isn't it such a beautiful image?  It's so much like the image painted in Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse.  I blogged about it a while ago.  How about you go back and have a read of it?  Another beautiful example of personification of the seasons!  (Oh I just love it!)  The 5th verse is also beautiful, so I thought you would like it.  You all seem to appreciate things like this, just as I do.

I also have a funny, little thing to say.  I caught the train into the city today to visit my dentist.  At the dentist, I met my next-door-neighbours.  I walked with them back to the train.  At the station, I met a girl I used to go to church with.  I also met the manager of the video library that I now work at.  Random, isn't it?  I got on the train with my next-door-neighbours, and just as we were all getting off, I met a girl who used to play strings in the same ensemble as me.  Then, as I left the station, I met a girl who I work with.  I crossed the road and walking past me were three kids I knew from my old school.  I then got a lift home from my next-door-neighbours, and on the way home, I saw an old family friend walking in the park.  Well.  Coincidence much?  If this is Brisbane, I can't wait to see what the feeling of "knowing-everyone" is like in a small-country-town!