Season by Season

August 22 - September 6

In this very vegetal episode, author John Forti joins Alexis and Kit to discuss his new book “The Heirloom Gardener.” Our co-hosts take a look at the bounty of the late summer vegetable garden, and admire a beautiful visitor to the garden: the dragonfly.

Fading Heat Rediscovered

Alexis & Kit

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.Fading Heat Spotify Companion Playlist

The Heirloom Gardener and its author, John Forti

"The Heirloom Gardener - Traditional Plants and Skills for the Modern World" by John Forti

Published by Timber Press/Workman Publishing.

These days, we all need some good news and a way to participate in meaningful change. The Heirloom Gardener is a book for gardeners who want to deepen their knowledge and improve life for families, pollinators and wildlife in their own backyards. It’s a love poem to the earth; a map to the art of living intentionally and a guidepost for environmental gardeners and artisans. It unearths old-ways, storied plants and artisanal life-skills; like seed-saving, herbalism, foraging, distillation, ethnobotany and organics which contribute to a new 21st century arts and crafts movement. With woodcuts from Caldecott Medal artist Mary Azarian, The Heirloom Garden offers a dose of wild hope for a weary nation. Learn more.

John Forti is a garden historian and ethnobotanist who has directed gardens for Plimoth Plantation Museum, Strawbery Banke Museum, Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and Bedrock Gardens. As a Slow Food Slow Food USA Governor and biodiversity specialist, his preservation work has helped to restore countless native and heirloom plants and has brought traditional artisanal practices to modern thinking. He has won numerous awards for historic garden preservation, children’s garden design, herbal and historical education, and the 2021 Award of Excellence from National Garden Clubs, the largest volunteer gardening organization in the world. This book was inspired by his posts as 'The Heirloom Gardener - John Forti' which go out regularly to millions on Facebook that value his uniquely curated blend of history, horticulture, environmentalism, poetry, art, kitchen, and garden craft. He gardens and lives along the banks of the Piscataqua River in Maine.

Reviews for The Heirloom Gardener

“The Heirloom Gardener is a book for gardeners who want to engage with nature through pollinators and wildlife in their own backyards. It offers a tapestry of storied plants, artisanal practices, and homestead lifestyles. In its pages, John reminds us that there is always room for an undercurrent when the mainstream gets too big; and empowers readers with a toolkit of traditional and sustainable practices for an emerging artisanal crafts movement, and a brighter future”. Alice Waters, Chef & Owner, Chez Panisse, Founder, The Edible Schoolyard Project

“Rather than dwelling solely in the past, John Forti’s groundbreaking book builds on shared roots to forge a stronger, better, greener tomorrow. Every sentence inspires you to personally become a participant in the evolution. This book is flat out brilliant.”—Tovah Martin, horticulturist and author of The Garden in Every Sense and Season.

Poems Featured in this Podcast

Plant a Garden, by Edgar Guest

If your purse no longer bulges
and you’ve lost your golden treasure,
If at times you think you’re lonely
and have hungry grown for pleasure,
Don’t sit by your hearth and grumble,
don’t let mind and spirit harden.
If it’s thrills of joy you wish for
get to work and plant a garden!

If it’s drama that you sigh for,
plant a garden and you’ll get it
You will know the thrill of battle
fighting foes that will beset it
If you long for entertainment and
for pageantry most glowing,
Plant a garden and this summer spend
your time with green things growing.

If it’s comradeship you sight for,
learn the fellowship of daisies.
You will come to know your neighbor
by the blossoms that he raises;
If you’d get away from boredom
and find new delights to look for,
Learn the joy of budding pansies
which you’ve kept a special nook for.

If you ever think of dying
and you fear to wake tomorrow
Plant a garden! It will cure you

of your melancholy sorrow
Once you’ve learned to know peonies,
petunias, and roses,
You will find every morning
some new happiness discloses.

***

 "O Spirit of the Summertime!
Bring back the roses to the dells;
The swallow from her distant clime,
The honey-bee from drowsy cells.
Bring back the friendship of the sun;
The gilded evenings, calm and late,
When merry children homeward run,
And peeping stars bid lovers wait.
Bring back the singing; and the scent
Of meadowlands at dewy prime;—
Oh, bring again my heart's content,
Thou Spirit of the Summertime!"

-  William Allingham

***

We have a little garden,
A garden of our own,
And every day we water there
The seeds that we have sown.

We love our little garden,
And tend it with such care,
You will not find a faced leaf
Or blighted blossom there.

-- Beatrix Potter

***

Isabella, or The Pot of Basil by John Keats

And so she ever fed it with thin tears,     
Whence thick, and green, and beautiful it grew,
So that it smelt more balmy than its peers
Of Basil-tufts in Florence; for it drew
Nurture besides, and life, from human fears,
From the fast mouldering head there shut from view:       
So that the jewel, safely casketed,
Came forth, and in perfumed leafits spread.

***

Sunflowers by Grace Hazard Conkling

Sun-flowers, stop growing!
If you touch the sky where those clouds are passing
Like tufts of dandelion gone to seed,
The sky will put you out!
You know it is blue like the sea . . .
Maybe it is wet, too!
Your gold faces will be gone forever
If you brush against that blue
Ever so softly!

***

Tomatoes by Pablo Neruda

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera,
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth,
recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
or fiery color
and cool completeness.

***

Tall nettles cover up, as they have done
These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.
This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.

-- Edward Thomas

***

The Aster Flower by John Gould Fletcher

Pale on its stalk, the aster flower
Exhales its beauty to the night;
The dry leaves scatter on the grass,
Brown flecks on bits of jade.
The haze of autumn hides the trees,
To-night shall be turned the hour-glass of my life;
Now all my thoughts going homewards
In the distance are singing songs of you.

Purple and gold, the aster flower
Is an image of my autumnal love:
Its golden centre is like a torch
To kindle joy in the long still night,
A torch of love with violet rays,
Grief at its enigmatic heart:
Frail clustered flower of my dreams,
You shall bloom to-night, you shall bloom to-night!

***

It isn't alone the asters
In my garden,
It is the butterflies gleaming
Like crowns of kings and queens!
It isn't alone purple
And blue on the edge of purple,
It is what the sun does,
And the air moving clearly,
The petals moving and the wings,
In my queer little garden!

-Hilda Conkling

***

I wish I was
a dragonfly
hallelujah
in sungleam.

-- Anonymous

***

Today I saw the dragonfly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.

Alfred Tennyson

***

A Dragonfly, by Eleanor Farjeon

When the heat of summer
Made drowsy the land,
A dragonfly came
And sat on my hand,
With its blue jointed body,
And wings like spun glass,
It lit on my fingers
As though they were grass.

***

alert eyes
always open --
dragonfly 

— Issa

***

The start of autumn
is always decided by
The red dragonfly

–Kaya Shirao

***

Over the flowing water
chasing its shadow -
the dragonfly

-- Chiyo-jo

***

Zucchini that never came to be, Summer 2021  by Ryan Trump and Caroline Ideus 

Peel it, spiral it, bake it, fry it, mash it, caramelize it,
prepare it and plate it in ways only limited by imagination.
The thrill of early summer sprouts with alpine-shaped leaves,
crisp orange blossoms hold endless possibilities.
The promise of a continued harvest, defiantly unending,
until winter dreams clash with the realities of limited imagination. 

Till it, compost it, mix it, weed it, aerate it, mulch it,
prepare and pamper the earth with comfort and routine. 
Thrill of unexpected garden defeats and surprise harvests.
Crisp spring sprouts cut short by unspoken twilight guests,
the promise of orange blossoms dashed by wilted leaves.
Uprooted hopes of zucchini that never came to be,
turned into a renewed thrill of midsummer sprouts and endless possibilities. 

Works Referenced & Quotes

• “How to Pick a Peach” by John Ruskins, Zucchini chapter

• Flying on Iridescent Wings: Dragonflies in Japan’s Imagination by Selena Hoy

• Sunflower from UIC Heritage Garden

• All About Asters by Fine Gardening

• The Heirloom Gardener by John Forti

Visual Examples of Seasonal Words

Garlic

Zucchini

Red dragonfly

Vegetable Gardens

Late summer grass

Nightshade

Tomato

Aster

Basil

Music Featured in this Episode

• Wheel of Fortune (with Les Gauchers Orchestra), Lee Maddeford

• Goldberg Variations BWV 998, 28 & 29

• Dill Pickles, Heftone Banjo Orchestra

• Shimmer, Krackatoa

• Quintet for Piano and Winds, 2 Larghetto by W.A. Mozart

• Across the Tappen Zee, Glen Jones and Laura Baird

• Bach Prelude & Fugue 7, John Lewis Grant

• Porto Largo, Alexandre Bateiras

• The Woods, and a Late Summer Dusk, Axletree

• Pictures of the Floating World, Bogong

• Aka Tombo, Chris Whittaker

August 7 - 22

Alexis and Kit bid farewell to summer and welcome in the harvest season in this episode, "the Beginning of Autumn," featuring nostalgic summer fruits, a soundscape of the Dog Days of summer, and an awe-inspiring meteor shower.  In "Hiro's Corner," we take a look at a special seasonal fish.

The Beginning of Autumn Rediscovered

Alexis & Kit

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.The Beginning of Autumn
Spotify Companion Playlist

Poems Featured in this Episode

An August Wood Road by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

When the partridge coveys fly
In the birch-tops cool and high;When the dry cicadas twang
Where the purpling fir-cones hang;
When the bunch-berries emboss—Scarlet beads—the roadside moss;
Brown with shadows, bright with sun,
All day long till day is done
Sleeps in murmuring solitude
The worn old road that threads the wood.
In its deep cup—grassy, cool—Sleeps the little roadside pool;
Sleeps the butterfly on the weed,
Sleeps the drifted thistle-seed.
Like a great and blazing gem,
Basks the beetle on the stem.
Up and down the shining rays
Dancing midges weave their maze.
High among the moveless boughs,
Drunk with day, the night-hawks drowse.
Far up, unfathomably blue,
August's heaven vibrates through.
The old road leads to all things good;
The year's at full, and time's at flood.

*

August’s Crown by Michelle L. Thieme

Whilst August yet wears her golden crown,
Ripening fields lush- bright with promise;
Summer waxes long, then wanes, quietly passing
Her fading green glory on to riotous Autumn.

*

Excerpt from the Illiad by Homer

Priam saw him first, with his old man's eyes,
A single point of light on Troy's dusty plain.
Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky
On summer nights, star of stars,
Orion's Dog they call it, brightest
Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat
And fevers to suffering humanity.
Achilles' bronze gleamed like this as he ran.

*

August by John Updike

The sprinkler twirls
The summer wanes
The pavement wears
Popsicle stains
The playground grass
Is worn to dust
The weary swings
Creak, creak with rust
The trees are bored
With being green
Some people leave the local scene
And go to seaside bungalows
And nearly take off all theirs clothes

*
Fog by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

*

autumn fog--
the river beach's pinks
barely visible

— Issa

*

Color of the wind
Sparsely planted
Autumn garden

— Matsuo Basho

*

Autumn wind - 
More transparent than water
Fins of a fish

— Mitsuhashi Takajo

*

Ode to the Onion, by Pablo Neruda

Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.
You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone
and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.

*

Canning Time, by Edward Albert Guest

There's a wondrous smell of spices
In the kitchen,
Most bewitchin';
There are fruits cut into slices
That just set the palate itchin';
There's the sound of spoon on platter
And the rattle and the clatter;
And a bunch of kids are hastin'
To the splendid joy of tastin':
It's the fragrant time of year
When fruit-cannin' days are here.

*

The Cardinal Flower by John Burroughs

Like peal of a bugle
Upon the still night,
So flames her deep scarlet
In dim forest light.
A heart-throb of color
Lit up the dim nook,
A dash of deep scarlet
The dark shadows shook.
Thou darling of August,
Thou flame of her flame,
‘Tis only bold autumn
Thy ardor can tame.

*

Purple so deep as to make them black: grapes!

—Masaoka Shiki

*

Just delivered
From my hometown
Tasseled grapes

芝宮須磨子

*

a cricket rides
unsteadily...
horse-shaped eggplant

— Issa

*

Horse-shaped melons
and ancestors
worshiped together

— Issa

*

Horse-shaped melon --
"Gimme! Gimme!" cries
the crying child

— Issa

*

Tanko Bushi Song

The moon, has come out,
Oh, the moon is out, heave ho
Over Miike Coal Mine has the moon come out.
The chimney is so high,
I wonder if the moon chokes on the smoke...
Heave Ho!

*

one dies out
two die out
lanterns for the dead

— Issa

*

From "Summer Haibun" by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

There are not enough jam jars to can this summer sky at night. 
I want to spread those little meteors on a hunk of still-warm bread this winter.

*

Now my loneliness
following
the fireworks . . .
Look! A falling star!

— Masaoka Shiki

Beginning of Autumn Recipe

See original recipe here.

“Ripening Summer Crisp”

TOPPING

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup uncooked old-fashioned oats
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cold stick of butter cut into pieces

FILLING

3 medium (4 cups) tart cooking apples, peeled, sliced 1/8-inch
1 (6-ounce) package (1 1/4 cups) fresh blackberries
8 dried Mission figs, stems removed, chopped
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest

Instructions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F.

2. Combine flour, oats and brown sugar in bowl; mix well. Cut in butter with pastry blender or fork until mixture resembles coarse crumbs; set aside.

3. Combine apples, blackberries, figs, orange juice and orange zest in bowl; toss to coat. Place into ungreased 8-inch baking dish. Sprinkle topping evenly over fruit mixture. Bake 40-45 minutes or until apples are fork tender and top is golden brown.

4. Serve warm.

Music Featured in this Episode in Order of Appearance

Beau Soir by Claude Debussy
Oak by Ben McElroy
Toscanini - Scherzo by Berlioz
I Recall by Blue Dot Sessions
Pour les Agrements by Claude Debussy
I, Livre, Preludes by Claude Debussy
Organisms by Chad Crouch
Within the Fog by Hudson
Winds Howl by Ketsa
Romance by Anonimo
Disappearing Memory by Ketsa
Japanese Communities: Night Toad’s Path to the Home of the Dead
Sea Stars (Instrumental) by Monk Parker
Hymn by Scott Buckley

Works Cited

Esporao: Galileo's Grapes and the Solar Path

Visual Examples of Seasonal Words

July 22 - August 6

This balmy episode features special guest Elijah Sobel, discussing swimming holes. Alexis and Kit chill out by finding ways to stay cool during record-breaking hot temperatures, focusing on “cooling things” such as iced tea, goldfish, and “uchimizu.” In Hiro's Corner, a refreshing look at the coolness of far-away twinkling lights.

Sweltering Heat Rediscovered

Alexis & Kit

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.

Sweltering Heat Spotify Companion Playlist

Swimming Holes and Elijah Sobel

“Where the River Deepens: Exploring Place-based Relationships Through the Swimming Hole Experience” by Elijah Sobel

Want to experience the river with Elijah? Check out his company in New Hampshire: North Country Kayak

About Elijah:

Born and raised in New Hampshire, Elijah fell in love with the White Mountains at an early age with ski trips to Tuckerman’s Ravine and hiking the Presidential Range.
When he was a child, his dad, David Sobel stuck him in the front of a whitewater canoe, and he ran his first Class III rapid at age seven. After attending the University of Vermont, Elijah moved to North Lake Tahoe, California. He spent seven years working in the outdoor recreation industry, honing his passion and craft for guiding individuals and groups in wilderness settings.
In 2019, Elijah relocated back to Bethlehem, New Hampshire and currently works for Holderness School. His excitement for paddling and experiences on the water is contagious, along with a strong focus on safety for everyone.
Inspired by an enduring sense of adventure and the possibilities of sharing his passion with others, Elijah is excited to bring guided trips for all skill levels to the North Country.

Poems Featured in this Episode

Summer Wind, by William Cullen Bryant

It is a sultry day; the sun has drank
The dew that lay upon the morning grass;
There is no rustling in the lofty elm
That canopies my dwelling, and its shade
Scarce cools me. All is silent, save the faint
And interrupted murmur of the bee,
Settling on the sick flowers, and then again
Instantly on the wing. The plants around
Feel the too potent fervours: the tall maize
Rolls up its long green leaves; the clover droops
Its tender foliage, and declines its blooms.

***

Hot Weather Philosophy (excerpt) by J. H. Harding

I only wish I could believe
While here in the flesh I moan,
That heat is cold and cold is heat,
I'd make a temperate zone...
I cannot... crawl from out my heated flesh
While winds blow through my bones.
Yet, I can dream of frost and snow,
Icicles and icebergs grand...

***

The first melon
shall it be cut into quarters
or into round slices?

— Basho

***

if someone comes
change into frogs!
cooling melons

— Issa

***

the clinking of ice
even this tea perspires
in sweltering heat

— Kit

***

Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of toast and tea

— T. S. Eliot

***

This edamame bean -
it flies for nine centimeters and then
enters my mouth

— Shiki

***

With a kitchen knife
choosing eels...
a cool evening

— Issa

***

Excerpt from The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame:

“The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.”

***

Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-trees trickles on my bare head.

— Li Po

***

The setting sun is shining
on the drops of sprinkled water on the road

-- Toru Sakano

***

The bustle of the alleys
Is arush with water

-- Mayumi Yoshida

***

As we wait
A small breeze alights
Off the dampened streets

-- Mieko Takanashi

***

Midday nap--
the scent of lotuses
Meanders

— Issa

***

Chased away
from my napping spot...
mosquito-spurting grass

— Issa

***

Since it's cool down there
take a little nap...
bottom of the well

-- Issa

***

The melon
can't sink completely...
the well

— Issa

***

The gleam of a goldfish
being scooped
at a festival stall at night

— Taneda Santoka

***

A goldfish seller
with a smile
on this straight road

— Hirahata Seito

***

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold —
That is the madman;
The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or, in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear. 

— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 5, sc. 1

***

And after seven nights
of summer's brightness Weed-month slips
into the dwellings; everywhere August brings
to peoples of the earth Lammas Day. So autumn comes,
after that number of nights but one,
bright, laden with fruits. Plenty is revealed,
beautiful upon the earth.
— from The Menologium of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Visual Examples of Seasonal Words

Melons (Cantaloupe)

Iced Tea

uchimizu

Unagi - Eel

Goldfish Scooping

Edamame

Watermelon

Works Cited

“Foods American Once Loved to Eat” by Smithsonian Magazine

Music Featured in this Episode

• The Kyoto Connection, Water

• The Kyoto Connection, Ikigai

• Blue Dot Sessions, Lemon and Melon

• Josh Woodward, Water in the Creek (Instramental version)

• Xylo-Ziko, Imagery

• Almusic34, Wind chimes harmony

• Pistol Jazz, Hi no Tori

• James Beaudreau, Plum

• Debussy, Pour less agrements

• Edoy, Fruition

July 7 - 21

Summer heats up in this episode of Growing Heat. Join Alexis and Kit as they appreciate cumulonimbus clouds, get ready to celebrate a star festival and bask in the resplendence of some very special flowers.

Growing Heat Rediscovered

Alexis & Kit

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.

Growing Heat
Spotify Companion Playlist

Poems Featured in this Episode

A Boy’s Song by James Hogg

Where the pools are bright and deep,
Where the gray trout lies asleep,
Up the river and o'er the lea,
That's the way for Billy and me.

Where the blackbird sings the latest,
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,
Where the nestlings chirp and flee,
That's the way for Billy and me.

Where the mowers mow the cleanest,
Where the hay lies thick and greenest,
There to trace the homeward bee,
That's the way for Billy and me.

Where the hazel bank is steepest,
Where the shadow falls the deepest,
Where the clustering nuts fall free,
That's the way for Billy and me.

Why the boys should drive away,
Little sweet maidens from the play,
Or love to banter and fight so well,
That's the thing I never could tell.

But this I know, I love to play,
Through the meadow, among the hay;
Up the water and o'er the lea,
That's the way for Billy and me.

*

the well bucket
taken by morning glories:
water borrowed

— Chiyojo (Tr. Hiroaki Sato)

*

morning glories --
in the evening, they let us
admire their buds

— Tagami Kikusha

*

from the morning glory’s
blossom
midsummer begins

— Issa

*

Somewhere where the lotus blooms, 
the breeze wafts its fragrance, 
clarifying the water of the pond of my heart.

— Fujiwara no Teika (tr. Hiroaki Sato)

*

The Lotus by Ryokan
English version by John Stevens

First blooming in the Western Paradise,
The lotus has delighted us for ages.
Its white petals are covered with dew,
its jade green leaves spread out over the pond,
And its pure fragrance perfumes the wind.
Cool and majestic, it raises from the murky water.
The sun sets behind the mountains
But I remain in the darkness, too captivated to leave.

*

The Parasol by Emily Dickinson

The parasol is the umbrella's daughter,
And associates with a fan
While her father abuts the tempest
And abridges the rain.
The former assists a siren
In her serene display;
But her father is borne and honored,
And borrowed to this day.

*

in the cloudburst
an enormous morning-glory
has bloomed! 

— Issa

*

mountain water
shows off
a sudden downpour

— Issa (Tr. Chris Drake)

*

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!You sulphurous and thought-executing fires
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And though, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once
That make ungrateful man!

William Shakespeare

*

The Hawk by Paul Hamilton Hayne

Ambushed in yonder cloud of white,
Far-glittering from its azure height,
He shrouds his swiftness and his might!
But oft across the echoing sky,
Long-drawn, though uttered suddenly,
We hear his strange, shrill, bodeful cry.
Winged robber! in his vaporous tower
Secure in craft, as strong in power,
Coolly he bides the fated hour,
When thro' cloud-rifts of shadowy rise,
Earthward are bent his ruthless eyes,
Where, blind to doom, the quarry lies!
And from dense cloud to noontide glow,
(His fiery gaze still fixed below),
He sails on pinions proud and slow!
Till, like a fierce, embodied ray,
He hurtles down the dazzling day,—
A death-flash on his startled prey;
And where but now a nest was found,
Voiceful, beside its grassy mound.
A few brown feathers strew the ground!

*

The Butterfly's Day by Emily Dickinson

From cocoon forth a butterfly
As lady from her door
Emerged — a summer afternoon —
Repairing everywhere,
Without design, that I could trace,
Except to stray abroad
On miscellaneous enterprise
The clovers understood.
Her pretty parasol was seen
Contracting in a field
Where men made hay, then struggling hard
With an opposing cloud,
Where parties, phantom as herself,
To Nowhere seemed to go
In purposeless circumference,
As 't were a tropic show.
And notwithstanding bee that worked,
And flower that zealous blew,
This audience of idleness
Disdained them, from the sky,
Till sundown crept, a steady tide,
And men that made the hay,
And afternoon, and butterfly,
Extinguished in its sea.

*

drinking tea alone
every day the butterfly
stops by

— Issa

*

morning-glories
softly floating...
in the teacup

— Issa

*

All night the crickets chirp,
Like little stars of twinkling sound
In the dark silence.
They sparkle through the summer stillness
With a crisp rhythm:
They lift the shadows on their tiny voices.
But at the shining note of birds that wake,
Flashing from tree to tree till all the wood is lit —
O golden coloratura of dawn!—
The cricket-stars fade slowly,
One by one.

*

The cool breeze
Crooked and meandering
It comes to me

— Issa

*

Huge trees are many,
Their names unknown
The voices of cicadas

— Shiki

*

Big rain
big moon
cicada in the pine

— Issa

*

Birds were few
And waters distant
The sound of the cicada

— Buson

*

The bamboo leaves rustle,
And sway under the eaves.
The stars twinkle
Like gold and silver grains of sand.
The five-color paper strips
I have written them.
The stars twinkle,
Watching from above.

*

At Tanabata,
Worshipful hearts
Are all as one;
The threads of prayers
Are all our own, each and every one!

— Minamoto Yorimasa

*

The melons are so hot
They have rolled 
Out of their leafy hiding

— Kyorai

*

The melons look cool
Flecked with mud
From the morning dew

— Basho

*

Oblivious
Of the gaze of the thief
Melons in cool

— Issa

Tanabata Recipes!

Make your very own Tanabata-themed meal!

Recipes include:

• “Cow herder rice”

• “Galactic Soup”

• Yogurt Summer Salad

• “Ox-cart Wheel” Lotus root chicken

GET RECIPES

Music Featured in this Episode

Stuart Breczinski - Fantasie for bassoon and electronics
Mi Favorita Mazurka No. 2 by Cat Livingston
No People in this Song by Charlie Lewis
Never Going Home by Charlie Lewis
Cloudbank by Podington Bear
Clichy Waltz by Dana Boul
Over the Clouds by Lobo Loco
Sentimental by Sro
All Night Long by Lobo Loco
Portland Cello Project Denmark Live
Symphony No. 6 in F Major “Pastoral” by Ludwig Van Beethoven
Childhoodtime by Lobo Loco
O Frondens performed by Makemi
Chominciamento de Gioia by performed by Makemi

Visual Examples of Seasonal Words

June 20 - July 7

In this mouth-watering episode, Kit and Alexis celebrate the longest day of the year by dining al fresco! Our co-hosts prepare for picnics and barbecues, consider the outdoor activities of berry picking and fishing, and savor cooling foods. In Hiro's Corner, an examination of what we enjoy about shorter nights.

Summer Solstice Rediscovered

Alexis & Kit

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.

Want the music to last all mini-season long?
Check out our companion playlist on Spotify for this episode.

Summer Solstice
Spotify Companion Playlist

Poems Featured in this Episode

Summer, by James Russell Lowell. Excerpt from The Vision of Sir Launfal.

Now is the high tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay.
We may shut our eyes, but we can not help knowing
That skies are clear and grass is growing;
The breeze comes whispering in our ear,
That dandelions are blossoming near,
That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,
That the river is bluer than the sky,
That the robin is plastering his house hard by;
And if the breeze kept the good news back
For other couriers we should not lack;
We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,—
And hark! how clear bold chanticleer,
Warmed with the new wine of the year,
Tells all in his lusty crowing.

***

Summer by Jackie Meyer

At very long last the summer is here!
It's barbecue time with coolers of beer,
Watermelon slices for children at play
Hydrants will soon be exploding their spray!

 Laughter is heard from the tables outdoors
As merchandise beckons from neighboring stores.

 Business booms for my man on the street
His cart pictured with colors of great things to eat.
Mangoes, papayas, and melons galore!
Cherries and berries and so very much more!

Yes! Summer is here, it has finally begun,
Let's toast to a future of days in the sun!

***

At Stonehenge by Katherine Lee Bates (excerpt)

Grim stones whose gray lips keep your secret well,
Our hands that touch you touch an ancient terror,
An ancient woe, colossal citadel
Of some fierce faith, some heaven-affronting error.
Rude-built, as if young Titans on this wold
Once played with ponderous blocks a striding giant
Had brought from oversea, till child more bold
Tumbled their temple down with foot defiant.

***

Excerpt from “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti

Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
'Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries;--
All ripe together
In summer weather,--
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.'

***

Are these juice-stained hands
mine, or my grandmother’s?
Blackberry season

— Kit
(inspired by Margaret Atwood’s "Blackberries")

***

Excerpt from “Blueberries” by Robert Frost

Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb, 
Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum 
In the cavernous pail of the first one to come!         
And all ripe together, not some of them green 
And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!

***

The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts,
All on a summer's day
The Knave of Hearts
He stole those tarts,
And took them clean away.

The King of Hearts
Called for the tarts,
And beat the knave full sore;
The Knave of Hearts
Brought back the tarts,
And vowed he'd steal no more.

— Anonymous

***

A handful of cherries
She gave me in passing,
The wizened old woman,
And wished me good luck-
And again I was dreaming,
A boy in the sunshine,
And life but an orchard
Of cherries to pluck.

— Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

***

“Les Temps des Cerises” - words by Jean-Baptiste Clément

When are in the time of cherries 
The gay nightingale and the mockingbird rejoice together.
The pretty girls have folly in their heads
And the lovers sun in their hearts.
When we sing the time of the cherries
The mockingbird sing far better.

But the time of the cherries is very short,
When we go by two by two to pick hanging earrings,
Love cherries dressed in bright red like rubies,
Falling under the leaves like drops of blood,
But the time of the cherries is very short,
Coral earrings that we pick up while we dream!

***

Midsummer, by William Cullen Bryant

A power is on the earth and in the air,
From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid,
And shelters him in nooks of deepest shade,
From the hot steam and from the fiery glare.
Look forth upon the earth—her thousand plants
Are smitten; even the dark sun-loving maize
Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze;
The herd beside the shaded fountain pants;
For life is driven from all the landscape brown;
The bird hath sought his tree, the snake his den,
The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men
Drop by the sunstroke in the populous town:
As if the Day of Fire had dawned, and sent
Its deadly breath into the firmament.

***

Plum-wine making complete
A cat arrives

— Murayama Furusato

***

Aging plum wine
Made for someone

— Nihei Yoko

***

In her pajamas
Mom shakes the plum wine bottle

— Sonoko Tamura

***

Heaven, by Rupert Brooke (excerpt)

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat’ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?

***

In a water basin
they nod to each other -
gourds and eggplants 

— Yosa Buson

***

kneading eggplants…
purple on salt remains
like light after the sunset

— Yabuki Nobuhiko

***

The parent bee
its honey being stolen
buzzes near

— Issa

***

The Song of the Bee, by Marian Douglas

Buzz! buzz! buzz!
This is the song of the bee.
His legs are of yellow;
A jolly, good fellow,
And yet a great worker is he.

In days that are sunny
He's getting his honey;
In days that are cloudy
He's making his wax:
On pinks and on lilies,
And gay daffodillies,
And columbine blossoms,
He levies a tax!

Buzz! buzz! buzz!
The sweet-smelling clover,
He, humming, hangs over;
The scent of the roses
Makes fragrant his wings:
He never gets lazy;
From thistle and daisy,
And weeds of the meadow,
Some treasure he brings.

Buzz! buzz! buzz!
From morning's first light
Till the coming of night,
He's singing and toiling
The summer day through.
Oh! we may get weary,
And think work is dreary;
'Tis harder by far
To have nothing to do.

***

Chopsticks float
In the water
the end of the somen nagashi slide

— Hakko Yokoyama

***

Into the flow of the somen Nagashi
Chopsticks
Some skillful, others clumsy

— Yamada Yoshiyuki

***

Nagashi somen
I am eating
What coolness tastes like

— Junzo Yoshida

***

Moonlight, Summer Moonlight by Emily Jane Brontë

’Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere,

But most where trees are sending
Their breezy boughs on high,
Or stooping low are lending
A shelter from the sky.

And there in those wild bowers
A lovely form is laid;
Green grass and dew-steeped flowers
Wave gently round her head.

***

Seasonal Recipes:By kigo:

Blueberries: Blueberry Tiramisu “Bluemisu”
Gooseberries: Gooseberry, Meadowsweet, and Wild Strawberry Jelly
Plums: Plum Barbecue Sauce
Apricots: Apricot Compote
Eggplant: Grilled Eggplant - or - Eggplant Shigiyaki
Cucumber: Cucumber and Tomato Salad
“Gone Fishin’”: Basil Rosemary Grilled Trout

Music Featured in this Episode

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Overture via MusOpen

• Midsummer Meadow Party by Lobo Loco

• The Butterfly, Kids on the Mountain by Slante

• Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581 performed by Musicians from Malboro

• Americana Jam by The Underscore Orkestra

• Summer, Movt. 1, Allefro non molto by Antonio Vivaldi performed by John Harrison

• Honeysuckle Rose by Fats Waller performed by Chris Whittaker

• Les Temps Des Cerises performed by Chris Whittaker

• Flight of the Bumble Bee via Wikimedia Commons

• Calm by Zylo-Ziko

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Nocturne via MusOpen

Visual Examples of Seasonal Words

Blackberries (Copy)

Blueberry Picking (Copy)

Juneberries (Copy)

Apricots (Copy)

Damson plum (Copy)

Gone Fishing (Copy)

Eggplants (Copy)

Grilled Eggplants (Copy)

Somen Nagashi (Copy)

Nashi Somen (Copy)

June 6 - 19

Hydrangeas are blooming, fireflies are flitting, and rice fields are bustling with activity in this season, "The Time for Planting Grains."  Joining Alexis and Kit in a new segment is Hiroaki Sato, sharing haiku about a special kigo for this rainy mini-season.

The Time of Planting Grains Rediscovered

Alexis & Kit

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.

Want the music to last all mini-season long?
Check out our companion playlist on Spotify for this episode.

The Time of Planting Grains
Spotify Companion Playlist

Poems Featured in this Episode

June (from The Poet’s Calendar), by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes, and mine
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,
The foliage of the valleys and the heights.
Mine are the longest days, the loveliest nights;
The mower's scythe makes music to my ear;
I am the mother of all dear delights;
I am the fairest daughter of the year.

*

In the evening dusk
A single butterfly
Hovers above the water mirror

— Karahara

***

Amid the summer grasses
A single flower
Mirrored in the water

— Onitsura

***

Cool, cool,
Running into the rice paddies
Clear water

— Socho

***

flute practice
the rice fields one and all
so green!

— Issa

***

The mosquito smudge
Is also a consolation,
Being alone.

— Issa

***

A matter for congratulation:
I have been bit
By this year’s mosquito’s too

— Issa

***

smoking out mosquitoes--
soon the fireflies
are gone too

— Issa

***

Fireflies, by Eugene Lee-Hamilton

Now one by one the live winged sparks of night,
Like souls allowed to wander as they please
Through old loved haunts, go by between the trees
In silent zigzags of alternate light;
And grow in number, bodiless and bright,
So that the eye, too slow to count them, sees
Nothing but fire all round; till by degrees
Quenched in the dawn, they vanish from the sight.
And those more subtle sparks, which they recall,
The countless souls with which regret and love
Once peopled Death's great night, are they quenched too ?
Has Thought's strong dawn, which searches into all,
Reached even them, unpeopling Heaven above,
To leave us nothing but the empty blue? 

***

sparkling fireflies--
even the frog's mouth
gapes

— Issa

***

The river alone
Darkness is slowing
The fire-flies

— Chiyo-ni

***

three raindrops
and three or four
Fireflies

— Issa

***

with my umbrella
I part the branches
of the willow trees . . . 

— Basho

***

Early summer rain
the five thousand five hundredth
rented umbrella 

— Issa

***

Hydrangea
in the season of unlined robes
pale blue

— Basho

***

hydrangeas
pale blue in the rain
blue in the moonlight

— Shiki

***

watching the glow
of flickering fireflies
at twilight
love lingers all the more
in a garden colored by hydrangeas

— Fujiwara Ieyoshi

***

A Rose, by Emily Dickinson

A sepal, petal, and a thorn
Upon a common summer's morn,
A flash of dew, a bee or two,
A breeze
A caper in the trees, —
And I'm a rose!

***

two feet tall,
the crimson-budded roses,
their young thorns
tender in
the soft falling rain

— Shiki

***

Wild Strawberries, by Robert Graves

Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far as wise men know
Spring from the woodland vine.
No need for bowl or silver spoon,
Sugar or spice or cream,
Has the wild berry plucked in June
Beside the trickling stream. 

***

Summer’s Promise, by Alexis

On walks through my quiet neighborhood
I would spy you
Hanging out on the corner
Or over a wall
Dark, tall, mysterious
With glints of gold I did not know what you were at first
But one day, spied you on display
Nestled between the grapes
Gentle loquat, to me you are 
The vision of early summer
And the taste of all the promise that awaits

***

Poems Featured in Hiro’s Corner

Husband home from work
haiku for dinner
again

— Alexis Rotella

***

剥製の鷲の眼光のみ黴びず
hakusei no washi no gankō nomi kabizu
The mounted eagle: only his glare never molds

— Takaha Shugyō

***

黴の香もおろそかならず資料室
kabi no ka mo orosokonarazu shiryō-shitsu
The scent of the mold, too, can’t be neglected: the library

— Yamada Hiroko

Music Featured in this Podcast

• Fireflies by Stuart Diamond

• Boshu Haiku micro-suits by Paul Laraia

• Adrien Le Roy -- Bransles 

• Fae by Meydan

• Dream Softly Baby by Lobo Loco

• Rain Stops Play by Ketsa

• Breeze by Yakov Golman

• Sky by Chad Crouch

Visual Examples of Kigo

May 21 - June 5

Join Alexis and Kit for a sunny day in the garden in this episode celebrating “the season when the weather becomes fine and everything starts to go well,” or Fine Weather. Birdsong and the delight of growing things await us during the brighter days of this fine season. In Hiro’s Corner, we look at three rare kigo of early summertime.

Fine Weather Rediscovered

Alexis & Kit

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.

Want the music to last all mini-season long?
Check out our companion playlist on Spotify for this episode.

Fine Weather Companion Playlist

Poems & Prose Featured in this Episode

“Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places.”

— From The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

***

Seed-Time and Harvest by E. Nesbit

I'll plant and water, sow and weed,
Till not an inch of earth shows brown,
And take a vow of each small seed
To grow to greenness and renown:
And then some day you'll pass my way,
See gold and crimson, bell and star,
And catch my garden's soul, and say:
"How sweet these cottage gardens are!"

***

Red Geraniums by Martha Haskell Clark

Life did not bring me silken gowns,
Nor jewels for my hair,
Nor signs of gabled foreign towns
In distant countries fair,
But I can glimpse, beyond my pane, a green and friendly hill,
And red geraniums aflame upon my window sill.

The brambled cares of everyday,
The tiny humdrum things,
May bind my feet when they would stray,
But still my heart has wings
While red geraniums are bloomed against my window glass,
And low above my green-sweet hill the gypsy wind-clouds pass.

And if my dreamings ne'er come true,
The brightest and the best,
But leave me lone my journey through,
I'll set my heart at rest,
And thank God for home-sweet things, a green and friendly hill,
And red geraniums aflame upon my window sill.

***

dressed in a summer robe
the pleasant breeze
wraps me up
-- Nakamura Teijo

***

A seasonal change of clothing--
Travelers through the green fields
Slight dots in white.
-- Yosa Buson

***

that worm-eaten fan
looks charming too --
first summer clothes
-- Enomoto Seifu

***

The Green Cornfield, by Christina Rossetti (excerpt)

The earth was green, the sky was blue:
I saw and heard one sunny morn
A skylark hang between the two,
A singing speck above the corn;
A stage below, in gay accord,
White butterflies danced on the wing,
And still the singing skylark soared,
And silent sank and soared to sing.

***

To a Skylark, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (excerpt)

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

. . . 

Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

***

May Song, by E. Nesbit

BIRDS in the green of my garden
Blackbirds and throstle and wren,
Wet your dear wings in the tears that are Spring's
And so to your singing again!
Birds in my blossoming orchard,
Chaffinch and goldfinch and lark,
Preen your bright wings, little happy live things;
The May trees grow white in the park!

Birds in the leafy wet woodlands,
Cuckoo and nightingale brown,
Sing to the sound of the rain on green ground--
The rain on green leaves dripping down!
Fresh with the rain of the May-time,
Rich with the promise of June,
Deep in her heart, where the little leaves part,
Love, like a bird, sings in tune!

***

The deep purple and blue of lupines
Studded, amid the dewy  green of the hills
Trimmed, with the wispy grey and white clouds
Pinned, against the fresh blue of the sky
Billowing, up and up,
Mysterious, castle in the air
Of childhood

— Alexis

***

From the car seat
I spy
Regal Lupines, 
Joyful poppies, 
Frenzied mustard, 
Prim buttercups, 
Rambling Indian paintbrush, 
Waxy miners lettuce, 
Dusty asters, 
Alluring magenta thistles, 
Hazy blackberry blossoms, 
These, the roadside flowers

— Alexis

***

Hiding in the forest of broadbeans, Peter Pan

— Kakihara Kanegome

***

Four hands and a bowl
Pop, pop, pop go the broadbeans
Grandma and I sit

***

Weeds by Edna St. Vincent Millay

White with daisies and red with sorrel
And empty, empty under the sky!—
Life is a quest and love a quarrel—
Here is a place for me to lie.
Daisies spring from damnèd seeds,
And this red fire that here I see
Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds,
Cursed by farmers thriftily.
But here, unhated for an hour,
The sorrel runs in ragged flame,
The daisy stands, a bastard flower,
Like flowers that bear an honest name.
And here a while, where no wind brings
The baying of a pack athirst,
May sleep the sleep of blessèd things,
The blood too bright, the brow accurst.

***

Why, he was met even now
As mad as the vexed sea, singing aloud
Crowned with rank fumiter, and furrow weeds,
With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn-
Search every acre in the high-grown field.

— William Shakespeare, King Lear (Act 4, Scene 4)

***

Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus, or thus. Or bodies are our gardens; to the which, our wills are gardeners; so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuces; set hyssop, and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many; either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry; why the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.

— William Shakespeare, Othello (Act 1, Scene 3)

***

Pear and Peach alike decorated with bags, the swallow flies above the field 

- Sumio Mori

***

With sharp edges, fruit bags dampened by the rain

-- Toshio Hisaki

***

The red paper of hanging bags, the bungalow

— Awano Seiho

***

The Ladybird, by Enid Blyton

Ladybird, you’re very neat
From tiny head to little feet,
I like your coat of red and black,
I like your clean and shining back.
Do you polish it each night
To make it shine so gay and bright,
Or do you keep a tiny fay
Who rubs it up for you each day?
Beneath your shiny back there lie
The gauzy wings with which you fly,
You’re spreading them – oh please don’t go,
There’s such a lot I want to know.
Your house is burning, do you say?
Ah, well, of course, you mustn’t stay!

***

Little Folks in the Grass by Annette Wynne

In the grass
A thousand little people pass,
And all about a myriad little eyes look out,
For there are houses every side
Where the little folks abide,
Where the little folks take tea
On a grass blade near a tree;
Where they hold their Sabbath meetings,
Pass each other, giving greetings,
So remember when you pass
Through the grass;
Little folks are everywhere;
Walk quite softly, take great care
Lest you hurt them unaware,
Lest the giant that is YOU
Pull a house down with his shoe,
Pull a house down, roof and all,
Killing children, great and small;
So the wee eyes look at you
As you walk the meadows through,
So remember when you pass
Through the grass!

***

Garden Dusk by Grace Hazard Conkling

This stillness made of azure
And veiled with lavender
Must be my daylight garden
Where all the pigeons were!
Blue dusk upon my eyelids,
Your drifting moods disclose
The moth that is a flower,
The wings that are a rose.
Make haste, exhale your sweetness,
For you must vanish soon:
The garden will forget you
At rising of the moon
A glory dawns predestined
Of old to banish you
And bind you fast with rainbows
In dungeons of the dew.
And who will then remember
Your cool and gossamer art?
Ah, never moon may exile
Your beauty from my heart!

Music Heard in this Episode

• Paul Laraia, Theme of Fine Weather I & II

• Berceuse by Frederick Chopin, performed by Christine Hartley

• Bach, Awake the Voice Commands, Busoni

• Opus 1, part 4, adagio con dolore (Vaterlands-Bluthen)

• Ludwig von Beethoven, Sonata Waldstein

• US Coast Guard Band: At the Jazz Band Ball

• Debussy, Pour Les Agrements

• Debussy, Preludes Book 2

Paul Lauria

Violist Paul Laraia is enjoying the early stages of a multifaceted career as soloist, chamber musician, and quartet violist. Acclaimed for offering “long lines with lyricsm and poise”, in recent seasons Paul has soloed with the Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Bogata, New Jersey, and Nashville Symphonies, traveled all over the world as a principal member of the International Sejong Soloists, and has given hundreds of performances globally with the rising Catalyst Quartet, which Paul joined in 2013. Additionally, he is in demand as a freelance chamber musician, and has been guest artist at many major festivals such as the Yellow Barn, Sarasota, Festival Del Sole, Sitka, Banff, Grand Canyon, and Vail, where he has collaborated with artists such as Donald Weilerstein, Roger Tapping, Anthony Marwood, Michael Kannen, Maria Lambros, Natasha Brofsky, Daniel Phillips, Barry Shiffman, Robert Vermuelan, Joshua Bell, Gil Shaham, Cho-lang Lin, and Stephan Milenkovich.

Visual Examples of Seasonal Words

Fine Weather

Growing things in the garden

Geraniums in a window garden

Gardening

Soramame / Broad Beans

Weeding

Skylark

Skylark in flight

Lupines

Tomatoes

lady bug / lady bird

May 5 - 19

In this episode, Alexis and Kit explore the warm beginnings of summer through an array of early summer delights including irises, clouds, and festivals.

Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple, and Spotify.

The Beginning of Summer Rediscovered

Alexis & Kit

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.

The Beginning of Summer
Spotify Companion Playlist

Poems Featured in this Episode

May by Thomas Hood (1799-1845)

Tis like the birthday of the world,
When earth was born in bloom;
The light is made of many dyes,
The air is all perfume:
There's crimson buds, and white and blue,
The very rainbow showers
Have turned to blossoms where they fell,
And sown the earth with flowers.

*

Young Lambs by John Clare

The spring is coming by a many signs;
The trays are up, the hedges broken down,
That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines
Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.
And where suns peep, in every sheltered place,
The little early buttercups unfold
A glittering star or two--till many trace
The edges of the blackthorn clumps in gold.
And then a little lamb bolts up behind
The hill and wags his tail to meet the yoe,
And then another, sheltered from the wind,
Lies all his length as dead--and lets me go
Close bye and never stirs but baking lies,
With legs stretched out as though he could not rise

*

The Hen by Lord Alfred Douglas

The hen is a ferocious fowl,
She pecks you till she makes you howl.
And all the time she flaps her wings,
And says the most insulting things.
And when you try to take her eggs,
She bites large pieces from your legs.
The only safe way to get these,
Is to creep on your hands and knees.
In the meanwhile a friend must hide,
And jump out on the other side.
And then you snatch the eggs and run,
While she pursues the other one.
The difficulty is, to find
A trusty friend who will not mind.

*

The Month of May by Thomas Dekker

I saw a hundred of shades of green today
And everything that man made was outclassed
The month of May, the merry month of May
Now hello pink and white and farewell grey
My spirits are no longer overcast
The winter is over and its time to play.

*

Rabbit-ear iris
it gives me an idea
for a poem

— Basho

*

Irises
where the rainbow
starts from

— Basho

*

The cuckoo
singing about five feet
of iris leaves

— Issa

*

Mountains are
yellow green, pale yellow-
a cuckoo cries

— Shiki

*

It seems to me as if
A little cuckoo could have come flying
To aim at deutzia flowers

— Shiki

*

Dawn--
from atop the wheat
"cuckoo!"

— Issa

*

The cuckoo
singing, flying, singing,
ever busy

— Basho

*

Night Clouds by Amy Lowell

The white mares of the moon rush along the sky
Beating their golden hoofs upon the glass Heavens;
The white mares of the moon are all standing on their hind legs
Pawing at the green porcelain doors of the remote Heavens.
Fly, Mares!Strain your utmost,Scatter the milky dust of stars,
Or the tiger sun will leap upon you and destroy you
With one lick of his vermilion tongue.

*

Kites by Alice Thorn Frost

Up and Up, then down and down,
On a breezy day,
Jolly kites in colors fine
Proudly sail away.
Each is held, how wonderful!
By a slender string.
Children’s laughter, darting kites,
Make a day of spring.

*

Carp streamers are higher than the roof
The biggest carp is the father
The small carp are children
Enjoying swimming in the sky

Japanese folk song “Koinobori”

*

Both sword and satchel
display them in May -
paper streamers

— Basho

*

Best friends forever mom and me
Picking flowers and climbing trees.
A shoulder to cry on secrets to share
Warm hearts and hands that really care.

— Anonymous

*

Rhubarb Pie — Anonymous

If rhubarb pie
You've never eaten
Give it a try
It can't be beaten
I know what you're thinking
Oh how can this be
Rhubarb's reminiscent
Of red celery
How can something
This stringy
Become a great pie
There's a sweet little secret
Of that I won't lie
It takes lots of sugar
A half plus a cup
And a third cup of flour
To thicken things up
An eighth teaspoon of salt
And the Rhubarb you add
Four cups peeled and chopped
Won't turn out too bad
Mix it all up
And pour in a pie pan
Lined with a crust
You mixed up by hand
Dot it with butter
Or margarine is ok
Two tablespoons should do
At least that's what they say
Put on a top crust
Flute the edges up high
And cut in some vents
So the top doesn't fly
Sprinkle with sugar
And put in to bake
At 425 Three-fourths hour
Should take
When it is done
Place on rack for to cool
Don't eat it too soon
Or you'll get burned you fool
When it's just warm
Then open the fridge
With vanilla ice cream
You'll want more than a smidge
With milk in a glass
Or coffee in cup
You might soon discover
That you've eaten it up
Then go tell your friends
That you've found a new gem
And maybe next time
You'll save some for them!

Music Featured in this Podcast

“Venit tempus“ Words by A.A. Sanborn, Performed by Ruth Cunningham

Venit tempus vernum plena flores, et caritas Dei, et mirantibus tactu frigus.
Springtime comes, full of flowers and God's love, with a touch of cold wonder. 

“Longing for Spring / Komm, Lieber Mai“ W.A. Mozart, Performed by Madelyn Wanner Salazar

Koinobori, Performed by Chris Whittaker

Symphony no. 6 in f major 'pastoral', op. 68 - i. allegro non troppo by Ludwig Van Beethoven, via MusOpen

Kites are Fun by the Free Design (with permission from artist)

Calf Love by Lobo Loco

Sweet Dream by Lobo Loco

Waking up to the Sun by Pictures of the Floating World

Softest Fabric by Pictures of the Floating World

Quintet No. 1 in B major, movement 3 by Giovanni Giuseppe Cambini

Visual Examples of Seasonal Words

April 18 - May 5

In this bounteous episode, "Grain Rain," Alexis and Kit are full of anticipation for a season in full bloom, beginning with the branching out from April’s ripeness into May’s freshness. Author Winifred Bird joins our co-host for an interview discussing her new book, “Eating Wild Japan” from Stonebridge Press.

Grain Rain Rediscovered

Alexis & Kit

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.

Poems Featured in this Episode

Rain Clouds by Elizabeth-Ellen Long

Along a road
Not built by man
There winds a silent
Caravan
Of camel-clouds
Whose humped gray backs
Are weighted down
With heavy packs
Of long-awaited,
Precious rain
To make the old earth
Young again
And dress her shabby 
Fields and hills
In green grass silk
With wild-flower frills

***

When April steps aside for May,
Like diamonds all the rain-drops glisten;
Fresh violets open every day:
To some new bird each hour we listen.

-  Lucy Larcom

***

Spring Patchwork, by Abbie Farwell Brown

If I could patch a coverlet
From pieces of the Spring,
What dreams a happy child would have
Beneath so fair a thing!
A centre of the dear blue sky,
A bordering of green,
With patches of the yellow sun
All chequered in between.
Bright ribbons of the silky grass
Laced prettily across,
With satin of new little leaves,
And velvet of the moss.
In every corner, violets,
Half-hidden from the view,
With many-flowered squares betwixt,
Of pinky tints and blue..
Embroideries of little vines,
And spider-webs of lace...
With gold-thread I would sew the seams,
And needles of the pine;
Oh, never child in all the world
Would have a quilt like mine!

***

Wisteria trellis--
behind it, in the light
wildflowers

-- Issa

***

Wisteria plumes
sweep the earth, and soon
the rains will fall

-- Shiki

***

Come, let us plant a tree,
Tenderly, lovingly,
Some heart to cheer.
Long may its branches sway
Shelter sweet birds alway,
Long may its blossoms say
'Springtide is here.'

        – Anonymous

***

Arbor Day, by Annette Wynne

On Arbor Day
We think of birds and greening trees,
Of meadowlands and humming bees,
Of orchards far from crowded town,
Of heights where streams go tumbling down,
Wee mountain rills that sing and play—
On Arbor Day.

Of how the tree tops coax the rain
From flying clouds till hill and plain
Are clean and fresh from sea to sea;
We plant a seed; a tiny tree
Wakes up and throws aside the clod,
And stretches for the climb toward God—
We sing a song for the joy of May—
On Arbor Day.

***

The Polliwog by Arthur Guiterman

Oh, the polliwog is woggling
In his pleasant native bog
With his beady eyes a-goggling
Through the underwater fog
And his busy tail a-joggling
And his eager ahead agog
Just a happy little frogling
Who is bound to be a frog

***

May is Pretty, May is Mild by Annette Wynne

May is pretty, May is mild,
Dances like a happy child;
Sing out, robin; spring out, flowers;
April went with all her showers,
And the world is green again;
Come out, children, to the glen,
To the meadows, to the wood,
For the earth is clean and good,
And the sky is clear and blue,
And bright May is calling you!
May is pretty, May is mild,
Dances like a happy child,
On a blessèd holiday,
Come out, children, join the play!

***

Even while yawning
she keeps the tune...
tea picking

    -- Issa

***

Spring Fever, by Charles Andrews Heath

When a feller feels a longing
For the medder in his breast.
When the robins north are thronging,
Where they haste to build their nest.
When the frogs peep in the puddle
Where I love to hear them sing,
Then my brain is in a muddle,
For I know it's really spring.

When the double windows smother
Us until we want more air;
When a protest comes and mother
Can't endure them longer there;
When we ope the cellar shutters,
Kitchen doors are on the swing,
Clean the cisterns, fix the gutters―
Then I know it’s truly spring.

***

Wisteria dangles
to its heart's content...
fresh green leaves

-- Issa

***

Wind on the greenery--
coming to see my house
the morning sun

-- Issa

***

Voices of the Earth, by Archibald Lampman

We have not heard the music of the spheres,
The song of star to star, but there are sounds
More deep than human joy and human tears,
That Nature uses in her common rounds;
The fall of streams, the cry of winds that strain
The oak, the roaring of the sea’s surge,
Might of thunder breaking afar off, or rain
That falls by minutes in the summer night.
These are the voices of earth’s secret soul,
Uttering the mystery from which she came.
To him who hears them grief beyond control,
Or joy inscrutable without a name,
Wakes in his heart thoughts bedded there, impearled,
Before the birth and making of the world.

Music Heard in this Episode

• Nomadic by Pictures of the Floating World

• Piano concerto, No. 1, 3rd movement by Franz Liszt

• Fantasia No. 8 by Georg Philipp Telemann performed by David Hernando Vitores

• Wisteria by the Blue Dot Sessions

• Grand Duo Cocertant for clarinet and piano, Allegro by Weber

• Frog Legs Rag by James Scott

• Lark in the Morning by The Atholl Highlanders

• Fomalhaut by Pictures of the Floating World

• Merry-go-round by Howie and Ann Mitchell

• Mono shino sora e by Mekoisu

• Julian’s Song by John Pickens

• Orecchio di Dioniso by Sergi Boal

• Piano Sonato No. 4 op. 7, 1, Allegro molto e con brio by Ludwig van Beethoven

• Sonata No. 15 in D Major, Op 28 “pastorale” I. allegro by Ludwig van Beethoven

Eating Wild Japan

About the book:
From bracken to butterbur to "princess" bamboo, some of Japan's most iconic foods are foraged, not grown, in its forests, fields, and coastal waters--yet most Westerners have never heard of them.
In this book, journalist Winifred Bird eats her way from one end of the country to the other in search of the hidden stories of Japan's wild foods, the people who pick them, and the places whose histories they've shaped.
"A beautiful and thoughtful exploration of the deep relationship--past and present--between people and wild plants in one of the world's richest foraging regions."--Samuel Thayer, author of Incredible Wild Edibles and The Forager's Harvest

Purchase Eating Wild Japan

 

About Winifred Bird:
Winifred Bird is a writer, translator, lifelong cook, and lover of plants both wild and domesticated. For almost a decade she lived in rural Japan, where she worked as an environmental journalist, grew organic rice and vegetables, and ate as many foraged foods as possible. She currently lives with her family in northern Illinois. Paul Poynter (illustrations) is an artist, tree climber, and woodsman living in Matsumoto, Japan.

Visual Examples of Seasonal Words

Warabi (Sansai)

Flowering Dogwood

Polliwogs

May Day

Wisteria

Tea Picking

Wisteria Trellis

Spring Naps

April 4 - 18

In this episode, Alexis and Kit celebrate the season known as "Clear and Bright," discuss seasonal keywords known as kigo, and share the joys of the beginning of spring around the world.

Clear and Bright Rediscovered

Alexis & Kit

Listen and subscribe on Apple and Spotify.

Poems & Prose Featured in this Episode

“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...”

 Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

***

I come, I come! Ye have called me long,
I come o’er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o’er wakening earth
By the winds that tell of violets’ birth
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass
By the leaves opening as I pass

Ms. Hemans, from a The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady

***

Spring has come 
In all its simplicity
A bright yellow sky

— Issa

***

Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are
softly caressed by the breezes.

Antonio Vivaldi

***

All the day long
Yet not enough for the skylark
Singing, singing

— Basho

***

Voices
Above the white clouds
Skylarks

— Kyoroku

***

The skylark
Hides itself
In the expanse of blue sky

— Rokuto

***

Spring Song
by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Hark, I hear a robin calling!
List, the wind is from the south!
And the orchard-bloom is falling
Sweet as kisses on the mouth.

In the dreamy vale of beeches
Fair and faint is woven mist,
And the river's orient reaches
Are the palest amethyst.

Every limpid brook is singing
Of the lure of April days;
Every piney glen is ringing
With the maddest roundelays.

Come and let us seek together
Springtime lore of daffodils,
Giving to the golden weather
Greeting on the sun-warm hills.

Ours shall be the moonrise stealing
Through the birches ivory-white;
Ours shall be the mystic healing
Of the velvet-footed night.

Ours shall be the gypsy winding
Of the path with violets blue,
Ours at last the wizard finding
Of the land where dreams come true.

***

Hazy moon --
The pine passing through
Passing through

— Issa

***

Afflictions of the mind
Resembling moonlit haze;
It’s one of those nights.

— Natsume Soseki

***

The bell from far away
How it moves along in its coming
Through the spring haze!

— Onitsura

***

To pluck is a pity
To leave is a pity
Ah, this violet!

— Naojo

***

How many, many things
they call to mind
These cherry blossoms!

— Basho

***

In the city fields
Contemplating cherry trees. . . 
Strangers are like friends.

— Issa

***

The cherry blossoms
Put the whole world
Under a tree

— Watsujin

***

The wind falls, 
The mountains are clear!
Now the frogs

— Oemaru

***

Under the hazy moon,
Water and sky are obscured
By the frog 

— Buson

***

The Frog
by William Henry Dawson

Have you ever wished when fretting
'Bout the chilly air of spring,
When the days are longer getting
And the frogs begin to sing,
Have you ever wished that you could
Just change places with the frog—
Let him shoulder all your trouble
And then leave you on the log,
In the middle of the mill-pond,
Nothing in the world to do?
Have you wished you could change places,
You be frog and frog be you?
He don't fret 'bout rainy weather;
If the sun shines he don't cry;
He just takes it all together;
Happy wet and happy dry.

***

Pear petals fall in a slight wind on Qingming Day,
Men and women, old and young, take a trip to look for spring.
When the wonderful music and songs ended at sunset,
Golden orioles fly through thousands of willows freely.

— Wu Weixin

***

Visiting the graves
The old dog 
Leads the way

— Issa

***

The Great Buddha
Dozing, dozing
All the spring day

— Shiki

***

A swallow flew out of
The nose
Of the great Buddha

— Issa

***

By when the thaw comes
The first sun is mine The first kiss of April is mine! Rose buds in a vase Leaf and leaf I watch it!

La Boheme, Puccini

Music Featured in this Episode

The Four Seasons by Vivaldi
La Dance Nostalgique by The Owl
Tsolak Jan by Zulal
Convergence by Pictures of the Floating World
Nature Shuffle by Ketsa
Main Square by Jazzar
First Day of Spring by David Hilowitz
Explore by Madoka

Visual Examples of Seasonal Words