The Beauty of Autumn…..

 

Flowers from Alum Market on our Beltline this Fall….and when the flowers dried up, I got all the seeds~

Bad Hens…..

New Rose Garden this earlier Summer……

 

My beautiful picture

Looking to the East one morning….

Thanksgiving setting….

One of a very few Nautical paintings…..watercolor.

this is an oil obviously.

 

My beautiful picture

 

Autumn coming

 

Bullfrogs bellow a different pitch

Autumn’s fast approaching.

And though they soak in a rocky pond

Summer’s heat they can’t escape.

 

Full moon reflects in half-sunk eyes

Perhaps fish mistake the moons of Mars

And in their algaed depth by night

They travel the cosmos past the stars.

 

Jane Kohut- Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

Mrs. Jean Kohut, 1912-2014 and the poem “Gratitude”

was to be the cover painting for “Pitcher of Moon” but didn’t work out.

(UPDATE: Pam, Aunt Jean’s daughter called today just to see how I was. Pam shared her dear mother with me for years. She knew how attached I had become to this wonderful and compassionate woman. That was so sweet and I appreciate this so much. Pam has the full weight of the funeral arrangements (along with her husband) but she told me Aunt Jean had previously picked her burial outfit. She was being buried in her lavender pants suit and her USA teeshirt! I think that wonderful, that an almost 102 year old woman would want to do such. She was dignified to the max, a woman with great influence, the head of this Kohut tribe. Originally from Hungary, she loved this country dearly.

Brava, Aunt Jean!)

—

My Aunt Jean, almost 102 years old, died today, July 28th. Aunt Jean was a remarkable woman with tremendous history behind her. For many years she encouraged me, basically the only person in my family besides my husband, to write and to develop my poetry. The last two books have been dedicated to this remarkable woman and she will always be first in the dedication of any future book. I started this blog exactly 6 years ago with a story about Aunt Jean. Later, when I can collect my thoughts, I will write more about this brave woman who at 24, faced down a Nazi court in Hungary. She was a prolific writer of letters and her autobiography, and came to this country wanting to be a journalist. Over the past 10 years we wrote each week, and sometimes I received two or three letters a week from her. She was such a marvelous example for all women. She was my Anya…Hungarian for Mother…and she will be missed by so many.

Jane-Elizabeth (as I was to her)

—

Gratitude

What are these lights?
They shine into the heart even
As I shade my eyes,
Pierce my soul with exquisite pain!

Ah! The blessing of the Universe,
Whose stars are shooting messengers
Come to claim my heart, my soul,
Come to knock down walls of
Loneliness, isolation.
.

Who am I to argue?
Is there not a web, gossamer as a spider’s
Silver wire crossing from bush to bush,
Shining with prisms of light falling from
The morning dew?

Does not this silver thread, so fragile, eternal
Bond us together in Humanity?

The ways of the heart are mysterious.
They triumph over cold logic.
The ways of the Universe are greater
With mercy when least expected.

Oh, sing my heart with gratitude!

If we would listen to the music,
Would let the stirrings of a grateful heart move,
We would dance in rebirth each day!

Let pride be destroyed,
The soul made new,
Resurrected each day
To meet the morning with song, hope;
To dissolve law into love –

Paradise enough for You.
Paradise enough for Me.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2014

‘9-11’, a poem, posted for d’versepoets.com

 

9-11

On that beautiful morning

With a tease of tender Autumn in the air

The  unthinkable happened,

And our world stopped turning.

I saw the plane, I saw the fire

I saw the smoke descend –

A blanket of blinding grief

Too late to spare those on the ground

The sight of Armageddon.

–

Mortar-grey people transformed

Into gritty moving statues,

Holding hands, blinded by smoke,

Moved down streets where

Paper, bricks, metal, glass rained down

Like the Devil’s Ticket Parade,

Walked in silence towards the bridges,

Barely a moan heard I am told,

A nightmare Exodus  on this

Morning of such seasonal promise.

–

I saw worse.

I saw people jump

From the ledges holding hands,

Some clutching  briefcases

And all I could do

Was howl:

–

“I will catch you!

Jump into my arms

I will not drop you.

Do not be afraid,

Aim for my embracing arms,

With the last of my life—

I will catch you.”

–

That day of fire and ash,

Inexplicable funeral pyre,

Of  brave souls rushing in

And frightened ones rushing out

And the ash, the ash, the ash,

Covered everything like a silent September snow.

–

Ten years later

Still grieving,  this day approaches,

And I hear the words well up in me:

–

“We will catch you!

Jump into our arms,

We will not drop you.

You will not be forgotten,

With the last of our breath–

We will catch you.”

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 9-11-2011