Charles Burchfield, Journals, September 25, 1914

A haze-choked morning.  A cool air, tho smoke + haze seem to have a peculiar warmth.

 There is no horizon.

Leisurely dapply clouds, yellow edged against the blue Crinkled leaves patch the street like scum on a river.  Faint robin warbles as tho the leaves made music as they fell.

Thru a network of office windows I can see a row of poplars down Depot. Blued by distance I can see no distinct trees, only the sparkles that now disap­pear during a lull, and now burst forth in a million sparkles, like a host of fireflies low in a moonlit meadow, or more like sun-starred rippling water.

Clouds are big and round like thunderheads; the sky is pale but clear – at the western horizon green-ice.  The wind is cold; leaf-laden; trees appear black against the sky – whitish yellow clouds beyond

Leaves eddying up the streets. 

Buoyant school-children blown hither + thither like leaves; scattered shouts + laughter seeming more so. 

1:00 To Three Trees for a half-hour’s cloud sketching. 

Never saw clouds so wonderfully beautiful.  Windy day clouds, curling puff like chains yellowed by the thin upper-air sunlight; edges softened by delicate purple, violets, drab and olive; sky blue-green.

A wave of sunlight running along a road to the north, all around me dark, as it struck each tree, it boomed forth a vivid red, or yellow, so bright + intense I could scarce believe my eyes.

Thus it shot eastward, in a succession of trees starting forth.

As the sunlight became general, the colors lose in intensity.

Apple trees a fairylike network of silvery sparkles.

To H.W. Thompson’s. Too early. Home again. Sky becomes deeper blue. Air crystal Blackish trees, thru which clatters the icy breeze, twinkles with a myriad stars against the blinding white clouds.

To Thompson’s again. When out, air was washed clean – Clouds vanished.

As I was sitting on the mound at noon sketching, the school-bell westward was repeated again in the east, the echo sounds more.

6:00 to Three Tree Terr to see the sun-set.

On this rise of ground, owing perhaps to the elation in the air, I seem on a high bluff overlooking the town.

Diamond air.  All things snaps and sparkle. The wind tinkles the crystal leaves.  As if the air was full of water - spring water.

Poplars arc thinned, revealing the purplish stems which form great orb-webs that are full of poplar-twinkles.

Rippling flurries of snowy white over other trees.

Trees are transparent, as if the watery wind in its swift rustling current carried the thin golden sunlight in streams thru the foliage drenching it.

This is my beauty - all the beauty I wish for! The love of this nature around my home. They talk of Italian skies.  I envy not the Italian. Nor do they envy me.

I find no sympathetic beauty in the sky I have not lived under. The Elysian fields are not at the ends of the earth - they here at my feet.

The fiery sun in the west is repeated, in every window in Brooks mansion. The sunlight echoed + re-echoed in golden vibrations across the windswept fields.

Sunset, at last was bloody - showing thru a long blackish blue bar. Twinkles of birds.  Gold-edged clean-cut cloud.

Meadow-lark’s clear notes - wind blowing thru an ice-whistle.

All along the north-west was a low-lying bar of clouds which was like a great lake, its sun-struck curling edges, are tossing waves.

There, will be a frost.

Distance is hazy for all the icy air.

Moon snowy.  Almost in the half.

After supper, low down at the horizon the sky is a livid orange.  A star. 

My ear is sensitive only to the things that my heart cherishes + loves.

While writing I am vaguely conscious of Fred and Jack keeping up a lively conversation but it is only a mumbling to me.  Suddenly from some-where came the call of a blue-jay - its call sounding like iron-clanking.  I am not certain it was not my imagination.  I heard it several times.  It was able to reach me instantly.

I think the charm the Weerie-bird has for me is in the fact that I do not know what it is.

Charles E. Burchfield, Sept 25, 1914