Cold Dew Rediscovered

October 8 - 22

Alexis and Kit take an autumn walk in this episode, "Cold Dew." What autumnal surprises await as they wander through the apple orchard and the pumpkin patch? Will they make it back to the kitchen before October mist sets in? In Hiro's Corner, we take a delightful look at an unusual seasonal transformation.

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Cold Dew Spotify Companion Playlist

Poems featured in this episode:

Pleasant Sounds, by John Clare

The rustling of leaves under the feet in woods and under hedges;
The crumpling of cat-ice and snow down wood-rides,
narrow lanes and every street causeway;
Rustling through a wood or rather rushing, while the wind
halloos in the oak-toop like thunder;
The rustle of birds' wings startled from their nests or flying
unseen into the bushes;
The whizzing of larger birds overhead in a wood, such as
crows, puddocks, buzzards;
The trample of robins and woodlarks on the brown leaves.
and the patter of squirrels on the green moss;
The fall of an acorn on the ground, the pattering of nuts on
the hazel branches as they fall from ripeness;
The flirt of the groundlark's wing from the stubbles –
how sweet such pictures on dewy mornings, when the
dew flashes from its brown feathers.

***

vast sky
vast earth
autumn passes too

— Issa

***

wind is blowing
and so the geese
are honking

— Issa

***

traveling geese--
the human heart, too
wanders

— Issa

***

honking geese--
I picture skies
over inns

— Issa

***

An early morning
Yes, and a single goose
Up in the white clouds, nothing more

— Basho

***

Ah, the pine cricket began to chirp,
Chin-chiro chin-chiro chin-chiro-rin
Ah, a bell-ring cricket also began to sing,
Rin-in rini-rin riin-rin
They chirp throughout the long fall night
Oh, the voices of these funny insects!

— "Mushi No Koe," Traditional

***

“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is filled with leaves, we have had our summer evenings: now for October eves!” - Humbert Wolfe

***

The leaves are falling
In a house one cannot tell,
As they go drop, drop,
Whether rain is falling,
Or whether rain is not falling

— Minamoto no Yorizan

***

The leaves had a wonderful frolic.
They danced to the wind's loud song.
They whirled, and they floated, and scampered.
They circled and flew along.

The North Wind is calling, is calling,
And we must whirl round and round,
And then, when our dancing is ended,
We'll make a warm quilt for the ground.

— Anonymous

***

Fall, Leaves, Fall, by Emily Brontë

Fall, leaves, fall;
die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

***

Old oak! old oak! the chosen one,
Round which my poet's mesh I twine,
When rosy wakes the joyous sun,
Or, wearied, sinks at day's decline,
I see the frost-king here and there,
Claim some brown leaflet for his own,
Or point in cold derision where
He soon shall rear the usurper's throne.

— Lydia Huntley Sigourney

***

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well

— Robert Frost

***

Purple the narrowing alleys stretched between
The spectral shocks, a purple harsh and cold,
But spotted, where the gadding pumpkins run,
With bursts of blaze that startle the serene
Like sudden voices,—globes of orange bold,
Elate to mimic the unrisen sun.

— Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

***

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

— From “The Pumpkin,” by John Greenleaf Whittier

***

No pulse seems to throb, no voice dares to sob
Beneath the grey calm of the cloud.
No murmur. No sound. Only white on the ground
There creeps the thin silence along—
Creeps near and more near,—oh, so dim! oh, so drear!
Till I shiver, as one who has stood by a bier,
And the words die away in my song.

— From "The Fog," by Grace Denio Litchfield

***

If you buy a pomegranate,
buy one whose ripeness
has caused it to be cleft open
with a seed-revealing smile.
Its laughter is a blessing,
for through its wide-open mouth
it shows its heart,
like a pearl in the jewel box of spirit.
The red anemone laughs, too,
but through its mouth you glimpse a blackness.
A laughing pomegranate
brings the whole garden to life.

— Rumi

***

the garden's chrysanthemum
blooms at great pains…
fallen leaves

— Issa

***

neck and neck
with the mighty lord…
chrysanthemum

— Issa

***

This is the feast-time of the year,
When plenty pours her wine of cheer,
And even humble boards may spare
To poorer poor a kindly share.
While bursting barns and granaries know
A richer, fuller overflow.
And they who dwell in golden ease
Blest without toil, yet toil to please.

— Dora Reade Goodale

***

FROM HIRO'S CORNER

Sparrows having transmogrified into clams just eaten

— Kai Michiko

Mourning for not becoming a clam: dew on the chrysanthemum

— Natsume Sōseki

Not seeming even afraid to become clams, oh! sparrows

— Kobayashi Issa

The clam has sparrow’s freckles: how piteous

— Murakami Kijō

Method for Roasting Pumpkin Seeds

First, wash the seeds. Remove most of the pumpkin strings and pat the seeds dry with paper towels. Coat the inside of a bowl with butter or egg white then toss the seeds with ½ teaspoon of salt for each cup of seeds. Spread the seeds over a cookie sheet and roast them in a 250 F oven, stirring frequently until brown (approximately 15 to 30 minutes). Let them cool before eating.

Music Featured in this Episode

Romanian Folk Dances by Bartok
The Marriage of Figaro Overture by Wolfgang van Mozart
Prelude 1 Pythagorean tuning
Pour les agrements by Claude Debussy
Preludes, Book 2, Brouilards by Claude Debussy
Dear Happy New Year by Lobo Loco
G’schichten aus dem Wienerwald by Johann Strauss
Tocata pour le Piano by Claude Debussy
Fantasie by Faure
Octetet No. 2 by Franz Shubert
A Tale of Distant Lands by Robert Schumann
Unheard Music Concepts by Dakota
Op. 1 Vaterlands Bluthen Andante Maestoso