Autumn Day

Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.

Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulfillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine. 

Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
will sit, read, write long letters through the
evening,
and wander the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.

Autumn

Whoever has no house now will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone
Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening
And wander on the boulevards, up and down...

Autumn Day                                Rainer Maria Rilke

Its stain is everywhere.
The sharpening air
of late afternoon
is now the colour of tea.
Once-glycerined green leaves
burned by a summer sun
are brittle and ochre.
Night enters day like a thief.
And children fear that the beautiful daylight has gone.
Whoever has no house now will never have one.

It is the best and the worst time.
Around a fire, everyone laughing,
brocaded curtains drawn,
nowhere-anywhere-is more safe than here.
The whole world is a cup
one could hold in one's hand like a stone
warmed by that same summer sun.
But the dead or the near dead
are now all knucklebone.
Whoever is alone will stay alone.

Nothing to do. Nothing to really do.
Toast and tea are nothing.
Kettle boils dry.
Shut the night out or let it in,
it is a cat on the wrong side of the door
whichever side it is on. A black thing
with its implacable face.
To avoid it you
will tell yourself you are something,
will sit, read, write long letters through the evening.

Even though there is bounty, a full harvest
that sharp sweetness in the tea-stained air
is reserved for those who have made a straw
fine as a hair to suck it through-
fine as a golden hair.
Wearing a smile or a frown
God's face is always there.
It is up to you
if you take your wintry restlessness into the town
and wander on the boulevards, up and down.

One of my favorite seasons, but includes a refrain we call back-to-school.

I am now in L.A. for round 2 of being a Foreign Student in America.

-at LAX they held me for 2.5 hours in this guarded, isolated area because I didn't know my I-94 had to be turned in when I left the States back in June.  They wouldn't even let me make a phone call to call my roommate who was waiting to pick me up (now I owe him a good dinner), and they didn't let me retrieve my baggage.  But they were generous enough to have someone retrieve them for me later.

-after I left LAX I realized the INS officer forgot to give me a new I-94, so I had to go downtown this past Wednesday and line up to get into the federal building and finally got to Deferred Inspections Office, where they gave me a new I-94.  I told a new friend about these troubles and he said I was lucky my name wasn't his name, "Mohammed."

-My first day in LA I drank 2 litres of water in about 3.5 hours.  Everytime I come here I get so dehydrated for a day or two.

-All my classes are messed up.  I'm only enrolled in two currently.  This week I will find myself begging two or three profs or something like that.

-I went to Fresh 2004, which was a youth rally featuring David Crowder and the new Sonicflood.  David Crowder rocked the house.  The new Sonicflood sounded crappy, and they even gave a plug for their latest CD right in the middle of a worship song (not just in the middle of a worship set after a song): "You can find 'em (the CDs) right outside where they sell the merchandise blah blah blah."  Someone should've gone and upturned their table.

-my new place is great.  It's spacious and clean condo, the furniture is new, and there's a pool and ping-pong table.  But there's no pool table.  Can't have everything in life.

-I'd like to have a job and maybe I could lease a car.  It's difficult to get to UCLA from my place.  Oh yeah, they don't have the Acura EL in USA!