SEPTEMBER - "Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang As if her song could have no ending..."
... I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending;- I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more." from "The Solitary Reaper" by William Wordsworth Roses reaching for the sky! Watching the last of the harvest being taken in from the fields around me when I was a little girl, left, even as young as I was then, a feeling of emptiness. Between our cottage and the field where the reaper had been was an old mere - dried up except for a small ditch running alongside. Over the summer months we had played along the mere and watched the crops grow. We were country children and the seasons affected us. The stooks were being gathered up onto the cart and the field would be left bare. As children, the success or failure of the harvest probably wasn't as big a deal for us as the fact that our summer games had ended and our freedoms would be curtailed! I watched from my tiny bedroom w
