"This darkening autumn: my neighbor, how does he continue?" Basho Matsuo (trans. Michael R. Burch) (images: Koitsu Ishiwata)

Mist over the downs

A little honeybee hard at work among the purple-stemmed asters before the sun sets

"Autumn weighs upon me but tomorrow will come and I will miss tonight." Buson Yosa (image: autumn evening, Shotei Takahashi )

Like a plastic tile mosaic at the centre. Lantana camara. #minutiae

"I'll write to you. A super-long letter, like in an old-fashioned novel." Haruki Murakami (autumn evening, Yumeji)

"two young deer side by side... a duet" Issa Kobayashi (image: Kanzan Shimomura)

"This autumn -- Why am I growing old? bird disappearing among clouds." ― Basho Matsuo (tr. Robert Hass) (images: Shiro Kasamatsu / Koson Ohara)

"The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and journey itself is home." ― Basho Matsuo [image: Koson Ohara]

"I keep on walking and the red spider lily keeps on blooming" Santoka [red spider lily is called "higanbana" in Japanese, which literally means flower of higan. higan"means the day of the autumn equinox.] (image: Sekka Kamisaka)

The week’s trilogy comes to an end 🌻 See you next Monday for another slice of France. Too bad for the algorithms 😉 Slow down, breathe, and never stop dreaming… #MyIncredibleFrance #SlowLife #DreamBig 📷 Hans

"Do not resist The journey's flow And you will find yourself at One With the mysterious unity of the Universe..." Chuang Tzu (image: Hasui Kawase)

Fantastic! 🌼

"Always alone ― A red dragonfly" Santoka (image: Hokusai)

"autumn wind -- on my pilgrimage to what hell?" Issa Kobayashi (image: Harunobu Suzuki)

Milton Avery. Boa noite 2

Just been trying to remember the name for a certain shade of blue. I kept thinking 'is it pumpernickel?' I was thinking of periwinkle. Lovely colour. Anyway, carry on.

"Do not let me hear Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, Their fear of fear and frenzy" T.S.Eliot

"Autumn, I confess it: your wind at night-fall stabs deep into my heart." Murasaki Shikibu (image: Kiyonaga Torii)

"I thought to pick The flowers of forgetting For myself, But I found it already growing in his heart." Ono no Komachi (images: Seiichi Hayashi / Kiitsu Suzuki)

A shower of stars

September radiance

Today's portal.

"A woman stands all alone, ready to wade across the Milky Way" Takajo Mitsuhashi (image: Shiro Kasamatsu)

‘In the misfit mystic space of grace, comrades; love is to give and to do, and it’s a thousand to nothing in favour of you.’

"What makes us the most normal,' said Reiko, 'is knowing that we're not normal." ― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood (image: Seiichi Hayashi)

this is a link poets.org/poem/chanson...

"When a sighing begins In the violins Of the autumn-song, My heart is drowned In the slow sound Languorous and long" Paul Verlaine Chanson d’automne poets.org/poem/chanson... [images: Kiyokata Kaburagi/ Kaii Higashiyama]

"evening falls -- like demons emerging autumn clouds" Issa Kobayashi (images: Edvard Munch/ Emil Nolde)

& after evening of deluge a metallic light pertains in which forage & transit is fleeting before dark (we are all backlit & vulnerable, heron, human & huddle of copse), then a subtle rising of mists to obscure anything noctural, inhibiting their gaze, sharpening a sense of smell

"People soon get tired of things that aren't boring, but not of what is boring." ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore [image: Hasui Kawase]

"Out of the mirror they stare,/ Imperialism's face/ And the international wrong." -- from "September 1, 1939" by W.H.Auden

"In life there are two things which are dependable. The pleasure of the flesh and the pleasure of literature." ― Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book (image: long night, Shoen Uemura)

Missing little ginger cat on Valence Road #lewes

"Art evokes the mystery without which the world would not exist." Rene Magritte (image: Heart of the world, Rene Magritte)

"Although the cricket's song has no words, still, it sounds like sorrow." Izumi Shikibu (images: Koson Ohara/ Seiichi Hayashi)

about to turn in but turn out a spell instead

"Walking, still walking; the autumn wind." Santoka (image: Koukei Kojima)

"the kitten dances round and round falling leaves" Issa Kobayashi (image: Mikiko Noji)

& the twilight you make your own despite fullness of time - reset between sun & moon & the wavering - & the coming time as they draw closer, the coming equinox, the squeezing vice of dawn & dusk

"I tread on fallen leaves in today's light -- let there be tomorrow, too" Shuoshi Mizuhara (image: left: Shoha Ito)

words playing hide and seek in a lake of silvery air

"The stars have already opened their autumn eyes" Koyo Ozaki (image: Hasui Kawase)

& land agents arrive tomorrow to decide on plots. an Amazon driver from Ghana stops to chat. & after that a leveret bounds towards & folds 6 inches from yr foot. only the shorn & most tidy sheep graze. the berries flailed to atoms & and hedges square-tidied. all is for sale.

"autumn ― Vivaldi's music in dancing leaves" Alex Serban (images: Ikuharu Watanabe/Kaii Higashiyama )

Nine years ago today, or maybe yesterday, I'm not sure, one of the best friends I've ever had dies by suicide. I was already grieving my parents and thought I could say good-bye with poetry and photos. But I still miss her every day. sultansseal.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/j...

"Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall." Scott Fitzgerald (images: Shunso Hishida)

Guten Morgen! Sonnentag am Tegernsee. Einst machte Thomas Mann hier Urlaub. Heute Friedrich Merz. Die Zeiten werden auch nicht besser.