The Artist Inimitable

When I was a kid, I picked up every beautiful autumn leaf to admire the intricate distribution of colors.  Many of us  grew up in a time and in places where children were set loose outside to amuse themselves for hours at a time. How we did this without video games, cell phones or constant adult supervision is a mystery to most parents and children these days.  These times alone or maybe with a pal in nature are the backdrop for some of my best childhood memories.  Raise your hand if you remember creating stone dams at the edges of dirt roads to create little lakes or to make rapids in the "river" down which we sailed leaf boats.  We played outside in the rain, we got dirty, we were allowed to be children.  At the end of the day, my pockets were always full of special rocks, leaves, little pieces of smooth wood, and any other natural wonders found during my adventures.

Some things never change.  As I sit at my desk there lies on my left a pile of leaves just used to make these scans and on my right a couple of smooth stones found on the beach hold down a pile of papers. It seems that we gardeners never outgrew the love of playing in the dirt or looking with wonder at leaves.   

 

Now that I'm finished trying to be a respectable adult or caring much what others think, it's still fun to play outside.  Yesterday after work I walked around the drive through window of a Dairy Queen gathering these leaves noticed  the day before when I was cameraless.  People seemed to be puzzled by my behavior but as I'm writing from outside the walls of Bedlam, it seems that no authorities were summoned.

Speaking of questionable mental stability, between 1759 and 1763, Christopher Smart, during his confinement for insanity in St. Luke's Hospital, Bethnal Green, London, wrote a poem titled Jubilate Agno, first published in 1939 under the title Rejoice in the Lamb: A Song from Bedlam.  The manuscript had been found in a private collection.   In 1943 Benjamin Britten used parts of the poem to create the cantata "Rejoice in the Lamb,"  a work which I love and have conducted several times.  The following two fragments end the work and often come to mind when observing something as beautiful as these leaves.

 

For the trumpet of God is a blessed intelligence
And so are all the instruments in Heav'n.
For God the Father Almighty plays upon the harp
Of stupendous magnitude and melody.
For at that time malignity ceases
And the devils themselves are at peace.
For this time is perceptible to man
By a remarkable stillness and serenity of soul.

Hallelujah from the heart of God,
And from the hand of the artist inimitable,
And from the echo of the heavenly harp
In sweetness magnifical and mighty.
Hallelujah.