Word-Wednesday for September 23, 2020

 And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, September 23, 2020, the 39th Wednesday of the year, the first Wednesday of fall, and the 267th day of the year, with 99 days remaining.


Wannaska Nature Update for September 23, 2020
The owls are getting easier to see.

Nordhem Lunch: Closed.


Earth/Moon Almanac for September 23, 2020
Sunrise: 7:12am; Sunset: 7:20pm; 3 minutes, 33 seconds less daylight today
Moonrise: 3:05pm; Moonset: 11:17pm, waxing crescent


Temperature Almanac for September 23, 2020
                Average            Record              Today
High             62                     87                     70
Low              41                      22                     46


September 23 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Checkers/Dogs in Politics Day
• National Great American Pot Pie Day
• National Snack Stick Day
• National Teal Talk Day
• Celebrate Bisexuality Day
• Innergize Day
• Restless Legs Awareness Day

September 23 Word Riddle
What is the largest lake in Minnesota and in Kansas?*


September 23 Pun
It’s hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they always take things literally.


September 23 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day

• 1806 Lewis and Clark return to St Louis from Pacific Northwest.
• 1835 HMS Beagle sails to Charles Island in Galapagos archipelago.
• 1922 Berthold Brecht's Drum in the Night premieres in Germany.

September 23 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 480 BC Euripides.
• 63 BC Augustus Caesar [Gaius Octavius], First Roman Emperor.
• 1215 Kublai Khan, Mongol Emperor (1260-94) and founder of the Yuan dynasty in China.
• 1838 Victoria Woodhull, American civil rights activist, 1872 presidential candidate.
• 1871 Frantisek Kupka, Czech writer.
• 1901 Jaroslav Seifert, Czech poet, 1984 Nobel laureate.
• 1920 Jiri Jaroch, Czech composer.
• 1920 Mickey Rooney.
• 1926 John Coltrane.
• 1930 Ray Charles [Robinson].
• 1950 Jack Pine Savage

September 23 Word Fact
There are two 15-letter words that don't repeat any letters:
uncopyrightable and dermatoglyphics


Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:

• adversion: attention; perception.
• bocaresque: adorned with thickets or groves; sylvan; pleasantly rural; picturesque.
• comestible: an item of food.
• drumlin: a low oval mound or small hill, typically one of a group, consisting of compacted boulder clay molded by past glacial action.
• gombeen: a shady moneylender operating in times of financial turmoil.
• imbonity: an utter and profound absence of any redeemable qualities; an inherent lack or want of goodness.
• macarism (MAK-uh-riz-um) noun: a philosophy in which one derives their pleasure from the inspiration of joy in others.
• puckerbrush: dense, tangled undergrowth or scrub consisting of invasive shrubs and small trees; a thicket of this kind. Also: a tract of land covered in dense undergrowth; (hence) a remote, inaccessible, or uncultivated area.
• simi-dimi: elaborate or meaningless ritual; superstition; mumbo-jumbo. Also: fuss, rigmarole
• unbusom: to relieve oneself of troublesome secrets by telling them to someone else.

September 23, 2020 Word-Wednesday Feature
Autumn
Welcome to the second full day of autumn after yesterday’s 8:30am equinox. In celebration of Jack Pine Savage's birthday, today Word-Wednesday features several poems about autumn by many poets who were previously noted this year on Wannaskan Almanac. In keeping with the celebration, the Word-Wednesday staff has chosen uplifting poems that reflect the joy that comes with the fullness of life, as does this season:

Ode to Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
--John Keats


Autumn River Song
The moon shimmers in green water.
White herons fly through the moonlight.

The young man hears a girl gathering water-chestnuts:
into the night, singing, they paddle home together.
--Li T'ai-po


Autumn Day
Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one
anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long
time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.
--Ranier Maria Rilke


To Autumn
O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stainèd
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may'st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.
`The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head.

`The spirits of the air live on the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.'
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat;
Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.
--William Blake


Autumn — Overlooked My Knitting
Autumn—overlooked my Knitting—
Dyes—said He—have I—
Could disparage a Flamingo—
Show Me them—said I—

Cochineal—I chose—for deeming
It resemble Thee—
And the little Border—Dusker—
For resembling Me—
--Emily Dickinson

 

From A Year with Rilke, September 23 Entry
The God That Is Coming, from The Book of Hours II, 26.

You too will find your strength.
We who must live in this time
cannot imagine how strong you will become—
how strange, how surprising,
yet familiar as yesterday.

We will sense you
like a fragrance from a nearby garden
and watch you move through our days
like a shaft of sunlight in a sickroom.

We are cradled close in your hands—
and lavishly flung forth.

Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.


*Red Lake and Milford.