Monday promises to be a warm Fall day.  I’d like lose myself in Fall.  I will carry forward the outside Fall cleanup in the yard.  Fall presents much to be done, to prepare the house and surrounding area for the cold months.  Work is beneficial to interdict the mind’s inclination to endlessly speculate about events over which one has no control.  Buddhist tradition refers to the monkey-mind, a restless and capricious mind ruminating endlessly.

I do not want to become a person transfixed by cynicism, dispirited by observed social conditions, the overweening affluence, the slow burn of under-employment, the empty hoopla of politics., etc.  Those facts are going to change slowly, imperceptibly, according to their own trajectory.  I am not the first, nor the only one living in an unsettled time, in a declining empire.

These photos were captured yesterday.  The leaves of the fern, showing the effect of morning frost have taken on a metallic sheen, seeming knife blades of anodized steel…  The rising moon, a fingernail, appears the bearer of magic, herald of a future which I cannot imagine.

Hang on!

How about a tune to hold onto !?  This, by Tony Joe White works !

---

Polk Salad Annie

By Tony Joe white

If some of y’all never been down South too much
I’m gonna tell you a little bit about this
So that you’ll understand
What I’m talking about

Down there we have a plant that grows out
In the woods and in the fields
Looks somethin’ like a turnip green
And everybody calls it Polk salad, Polk salad
Used to know a girl lived down there
And she’d go out in the evenings and pick her a mess of it
Carry it home and cook it for supper
‘Cause that’s about all they had to eat
But they did all right

Down in Louisiana
Where the alligators grow so mean
There lived a girl that I swear to the world
Made the alligators look tame

Polk salad Annie, Polk salad Annie
Everybody said it was a shame
‘Cause her mama was working on a chain gang

A mean, vicious woman

Everyday ‘fore supper time
She’d go down by the truck patch
And pick her a mess of Polk salad
And carry it home in a tow sack

Polk salad Annie
The gators got your granny (Chomp, chomp, chomp)
Everybody said it was a shame
‘Cause her mama was a-workin’ on a chain gang

A wretched, spiteful, straight-razor totin’ woman
Lord have mercy, pick a mess of it

Her daddy was lazy and no count
Claimed he had a bad back
All her brothers were fit for
Was stealin’ watermelons out of my truck patch

Polk salad Annie
The gators got your granny (Woo hoo)
Everybody said it was a shame
‘Cause her mama was a-working on a chain gang

Sock a little Polk salad to me
You know I need me a mess of it

Lyrics by Tony Joe White