Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, September 23, 1914

Yesterday & this morning the robins have been around, one of too (sic) warbling faintly, not so powerful & strong as in the spring but more poetically.  It is a faint sound and coming at this season we are inclined to believe it is our imagination.

F– reports a myriad blackbirds flying northward.

A heavy blue haze on the air. The early sun makes no distinct light on the trees.  It seems more like an afterglow than real sunlight, dissapated (sic) as it is.

Early the air is full of white-glowing insects, like snow.

Crowds and dark mists gathering. A stiff breeze now and then.  Smoke shoots southward. Necessary to light the lights for a time. The Equinoctials are brewing?

Noon - A cool wind from the N.W.  Fine!

The blue smoke of burning leaves is in the air hovering low over the leaf-yellowed ground. The clatter of wind clinkled (sic) leaves comes down on all sides.  I purposely walked close to a smoldering leaf-bonfire and inhaled deeply of the rich-smelling smoke.

Nightwards it grows colder; with the speedy dark comes glistening rain which is short-lived. Wind sogging the rain-glistened leaves.

What is going on outdoors? A soft damp breeze trickles thru (sic) the screen bringing now the vagrant pulsing of crickets – their swing is gone - and now the delicate clatter of rain on the blottery earth.

Dandelions are rife.  They seem more slenderly put together than in the spring. Their yellow seems colder.

“Drink deep” says Omar. I am only sipping timidly.

Is the poetry I boast of in my soul paramount to the beauty of the cerias? Is the beauty I see abstract, untempered by the trial of years.  Yes!  If I can at the end of life see the sunlight tossing thru (sic) the wind-riddled foliage and feel that it is the highest thing – success!  Then will it have attained the beauty of the buttercup or dandelion.

Charles E. Burchfield.  Sept 23, 1914.