I'm with you! I tolerate fall, hate winter, like spring, but love summer!
I dislike being cooped up, dislike not seeing neighbors, having to wear lots of layers of clothing, miss fresh local fruit, my list could go on and on.

Susan WNAJ, and EL, I'm in the hate winter club too. My number one hatred is stress over bad weather (ice storms rank #1, snow #2) and the angst over having to drive in them. If I had a work from home option, I might (slightly) get through winter much more unscathed. And then, my list, like yours, Susan includes, being cooped up, tons of clothes, fresh local fruit. Oh - and another huge on, having to clean and warm up the car!

I beg to disagree. Summer is my least favorite season of the year, but perhaps that is because I grew up in California, where it was summer all the time. Give me spring and autumn, and yes, even winter! Variety!

But that poem just doesn't cut it--sorry.
"Clammy cells"? "Poppy fumes"--written under the influence, I'm guessing.

Oh, winter! Root veggies, the parks empty out, snow, no longer constantly sweating, apples, stews, pot roast, fresh air!

I love winter. Summer, I slog, with only heirloom tomatoes and some good fruits as a consolation. Then, the leaves turn pretty colours, parsnips return, and I can stop slogging and start living.

Summer rocks. Labor Day is the most depressing day of the year for lots of reasons, including those of us who worship warm weather. I'm cold when the temp drops below 80. Heating oil's gonna top five dollars a gallon - it was one dollar nine years ago. There's only one good thing about winter, but I won't say it as it's bound to rile up the activist types. But here's something positive - while today was the last day for white nectarines from Doug, my white+yellow peach+nectaine (and quince) guy, he reported that he has a variety of white peaches that are still solid green on the trees and it will be weeks til they're ready for market.

The end of summer is a hard date to pin down, precisely.

It used to be easier. Summer ended on Labor Day and the beginning of autumn was marked by some very traditional events:

--The new school year started on the Tuesday after Labor Day, everywhere.

--The new television season began—all the new shows and new episodes of the returning shows, all in the same week.

--The first college football games were all played on the same Saturday—no Thursday night ESPN games, or College Kick-Off Classic games.

--In a presidential election year, the conventions had just ended and the candidates made their first nation-wide campaign swings, over Labor Day weekend.

--And the car dealers covered their windows in butcher paper, so you couldn’t see the new models, which were all unveiled on the second Saturday in September, at the same time, with great fanfare and foo-rah, on the showroom floors. That was back when any one car looked different than all other cars and we all waited anxiously to see what this year's models would all look like.

Anyway, I’m not sure when summer ends for you, but it ends for me on Labor Day

Of all the seasons, I think summer is my least favorite, which may be why I’m always anxious for it to be over.

I’m not a person who enjoys the heat. When you are cold, you can put on another coat. When you are hot, there’s only so much you can take off.

While I play some golf, I agree with Willie Nelson, who owns his own golf course and once said, “I play golf in the low 80’s. If it gets hotter than that, I go to the clubhouse for a beer.” (He also said, "The biggest advantage of owning your own golf course is that you get to decide what par is. For instance, the long hole over there is a par 10, and yesterday, I birdied that sucker.")

I consider yard work of any sort to be a chore and not a hobby. I don’t plant a garden and don’t understand why people do. You can buy produce at the grocery store or weekend farmer's market much cheaper than you can raise it.

Don’t argue with me.

It’s more than just the cost of bedding plants or seeds. You have to count all the gardening "stuff" in the equation, too. It’s the gloves, and the big hat, and the little tiny shovels and rakes, and the fancy-schmancy pad to kneel on, and the fertilizer, and the sprays and powders, and the little fences to put around the garden and the little rock sign that you put in the garden that says something like, "It isn't dirt, it's soil," and the concrete frog statue, and the dorky red bandana that you hang, neatly and precisely folded, out of your back pocket because you think it makes you look like a farmer…there is all this "stuff" you have to count, too, when figuring in the cost of raising your own tomatoes.

And a lot of this "stuff" is like an ice-scraper. You buy it and use it this year, but next year when you go looking for it, you can’t ever find it, and so you have to go buy it all over again. Has anyone reading this ever WORN OUT a pair of gloves? Huh? I didn’t think so.

I can count, on one hand, the things I like about summer: the 4th of July, home-made peppermint ice cream, the smell of a thunderstorm rolling in across the plains, Beach Boys music…I think that’s about it.

I actually spend more time indoors in the summer than I do out-of-doors. There are lots of bugs out-of-doors, and no air conditioning. The best place to be on a hot summer day is in the frozen foods section of the grocery store.

Autumn is my favorite season, followed by winter and then spring. I’m looking forward to autumn.

Autumn begins when the leaves have changed color, but before they have started to fall. (That’s where the nickname for the season, “Fall,” comes from. People holding rakes, standing around looking up at trees with yellow and red leaves and saying, “Fall. Fall, dammit.”)

Yes, summer is over and autumn is about a month away. What season are we in right now, you ask? I call it "sumtumn."

Merry Sumtumn, everyone.

I'm glad you're Bucky again. EL

I'm a summer gal, all the way. In my world I have to keep that to myself - it's okay for people to whine about sweating and heat, but let me say that i dig humidity and heat and I pretty much have to move on to the next group of friends. Anybody else notice this?

BTW, I have noticed the unwelcome slant of the sunlight starting in the beginning of August.

As per Mr. Frost

"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
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take."

I took the same picture thismorning. I've been chronicling the market on my blog and it's interesting to watch the variety of produce on offer changing with the months. This morning almost felt a little fall-like, too.

I miss the seasons too, especially fall when the leaves turn. Best time of year to go camping, and when I say camping, I mean in a tent, or maybe a primitive cabin - not in an RV. I usually come up to Baltimore in the fall to enjoy a little of that.
It gets cold down here in January sometimes, but doesn't last long.
I don't miss the ice storms though.

My favorite is the fall, when the heat of the summer finally lets up and I can start to think of my holiday traditional food and non-food traditions.

Second is spring for the rebirth of beauty and life.

Between winter and summer, winter edges out just because you can put on more layers and stay warm, but in summer, there are only so many layers you can take off to cool off - at least out in public.

Just thinking of fall makes me long for the first crisp morning when I know it's time to read this.

http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/capotechristmas.html

I meant to say no fresh local fruit - self editing error!

Lissa - and so we slogged on, boats against the current?

Winter is great from Christmas to New Year's Day. After that point, I'm ready for spring.

John Keats

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow yellow fruitiness,
Close bosomy friend of the maturing melons;
Conspiring with somebody how to lock and load
With fruity pebbles that round the leaf-clogg'd roof gutters;
To bend with dollar store twine the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all pockets with ripeness to the max;
To swell the gourd if you know what I mean, and plump Hazel's shells
With a sweet tennis bracelet; to set budding more,
And still more, later to rot on the dirty ground,
Until they think the pool boy will never come,
For Summer has overstuff'd their foot long subs.

Based on the three winters I have been through in Baltimore I really don't think there is much to complain about. Almost no snow or ice, no temperatures below zero. I like it alot more than summer.

Mr. Meat! What have you done to Keats?! I think Bourbon Girl is a bad influence on you. There's a nice young woman in my neighborhood who might like to meet - Club Soda Girl. :)

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Rodebud, Thank You.

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

RoCK has a good point. But when its real blustery in February or March, and then you get the odd nice day, when the temps creep way up into the 60s, you think-the end is near! Summer time isn't far off!

It's all in your perspective. I was raised on "Summer ends on July 4th." While that always seemd a bit cynical, over the years, I understood it better. By July 4, kids were already thinking about school and not necessarily sadly [but I age myself here].

Later, when I taught school, it became even more true. Classes had been over for a few weeks and it was time to start thinking about the coming year, planning for new students and lessons.

As a school-based administrator, it was even worse. By July 4, I was in full September mode, making schedules and assigning classes, spending endless days planning the mayhem that would be Opening Day.

My mother always hoped for a fresh tomato in her garden by July 4. She was rarely succesful and when she was, the dogs usually ate it off the vine before she could pick it herself.

Ah, where are the snows of yesteryear?

Verlaine had it right, with (coincidentally) what fans of "The Longest Day" will recognize as the coded message to the French Resistance that the D-Day invasion of Normandy was imminent:

Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne
Blessent mon cœur d'une langueur monotone.

(The long sobs of the violins of autumn
Wound my heart with a monotonous languor.)

Rev'Ed -- assuming you're a Chaucer fan, you may also be familiar with The Waterbury Tales, in which the late Judith Wax used Chaucerian language to send up the Watergate scandal. The full text is available at this webpage (don't forget the footnotes, which continue onto a second page). For present purposes, the opening verse is worth repeating here:

Whan that Junne with hys sunshyn soote
The Capitol hath dazzled to the roote
And blossoms bloome on the cherry,
Then folk break in and bugge Waterbury.

As for another apt combination of weather commentary and wicked parody of middle English, I like, and endorse, Ezra Pound's take on winter.

My, we're being literary today. Two of my favourites, even, Pound and Chaucer. I should find something from the Anglo-Saxon poets, but the only winter stuff I can remember is from either "The Seafarer" or "The Wanderer" and was not positive on the subject.

Bucky, I wore out a pair of leather gloves this summer. Having one of those wonderful concrete SE Baltimore yards (thanks, city, the rats are still here), I don't garden. I use them for planting trees and stuff, though. Used, rather.

Here is another but different kind of Ezra, perhaps appropriate right about now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hTSKBsADE8

I'm trying to participate in this erudite conversation, but the closest I'm able to contribute to winter poetry are the lyrics of "Frosty the Snowman".

hmpstd, you made my day with the Chaucerian take on Watergate. You probably already know that one of the Monty Python crew was a serious scholar of Chaucer, and published a fine and original book on The Knight's Tale.
(And that explains a lot when you think of their movies ...)

I find that if you read Middle English with a thick Scottish accent in your head or out loud that ME is very understandable and kind of melodic. Try it. It's fun. This is an interesting digression.

Better than Ezra? I always wondered how bad Ezra must be for that to be true. :]

Good direction to steer us though Rob. At this moment Hurricane Gustav is slapping the Crescent City hard and there is no better preventive, cure or accompaniment than the maginifient Dr. John the Night Tripper dumping a bucket of hoodoo voodoo and gris-gris on the situation. Now let's all Walk on Gilded Splinters. Yay-ah. Je suis un grand zombie ... 1968 Dr. John was a freakin' genius. If it sounds vaguely familiar, it might be because Beck heavily sampled instrumentals for "Loser". Laissez les bontemps roulez.

RC -- thanks for posting that link -- what a great song. I may have to listen to it a second time.

As for winter poetry, I've always liked "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". Something about those last few lines gets me:

The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

~ Robert Frost

As my final ode to summer: (via Brian Wilson) :
Miniature golf and hondas in the hills
(miniature golf and hondas in the hills)
When we rode the horse we got some thrills
Every now and the we hear our song
(every now and the we hear our song)
Weve been having fun all summer long

Three from Bill Knott

WIDOW/WIDOWER'S WINTER
Outside, the snow is falling into its past . . .
I do want this night to end.
In the fireplace,
a section of ash caves in.
The fall day you were buried,
birds went over,
south,
thick enough to carry someone.
They took my gapes of breath.
—Their fuel?
We are together in some birds, who fail.
I didn't want to look down, to glimpse your grave,
its heroic little mound
like the peck of dirt we hope to eat in our life.

.

FIRST WARM DAY
When the world belongs to toss-up.
Balloons whose footprints
sting the air with soft occasion;
clouds, whose streamers strain for
the horizons denied them now
by these new slow winds.
Even children relinquish the stoicism that
kept us safe from the cold, even they
succumb to a sudden cuddleness, weak
as the first spindly crocus. Seneca
is sent once more to silence.
Two plus two begins to crack before
the picnic logic of Summer.
The reign of the same. Difference
is banished here; outside and inside are
made equal in temperament, doors
left open declare armistice.
Winter's wars wane. Vintners verse their vines.

.

OCT-NOV (MICHIGAN MEMORY #4)
The bacon of the ankles crackles, and the sky
Perks up birds this coldsnap morning—every
Breath sheds a breath-effect, brief-bloomed steam-sheaf . . .
Puddles huddle in frost. Past the barn the path
Shoots hill-pastures which rose to winter early
And sun-shucked clouds blast-off from: migrants that fly
South—mouths that wet-nurse icicles—hatch forth
A form, a furious precision I sloughed
At birth, preferring life. And like the wind
Can reduce anything to description—
Running to finish my chores, beneath my scarf
I'll feel my chinbone seek my collarbone,
As if the flesh has ceded and the skeleton
Now must precipice itself against all warmth.

.

The bacon of the ankles crackles
Great. So underappreciated. All his work is generously available free at lulu.com.

Rock Chicklet,
I agree, and must bow to your most considerably wider knowledge of music. The clip you provided was way cool. I saw BTE for free when they played the Brokerage plaza awhile back, so that is what I thought of. For us here, it was a bit dicey at first, but luckily again, we were spared the worst.

Thankfully, the people evacuated and the levees held for New Orleans.

Dahlink, Terry Jones' book on Chaucer is actually pretty dreadful. I nearly threw it across the library, and ended up waving it in my Chaucer professor's face while screaming.

Fortunately, she was amused. She did agree that his scholarship was, at best, lazy.

EL what a cool annual ritual. Rituals are important for humankind to cope with hardships.

I wish my mom had the poetic sensibility to read Keats to us at the approach of autumn. But she was a scientist, and was more concerned about all the germs people were about to be spreading via close contact indoors. Wash your hands! Wash your hands! Did you wash your hands? Not so poetic.

Labor Day is a depressing harbinger of decay and death. Keats didn't live long after writing that Ode. And he was already mourning the fact that he would never be with his true love.

The only thing keeping me moderatly okay right now is that, with Bucky back to himself, I believe there are now more Girls than Roberts. Hi Girls!

HG -- the same thought crossed my mind. (Bucky back to being Bucky = one less Robert).

Well I have been so depressed at the coldness to come that I have spent the past few days with under a blanket in my closet, with a bottle of Makers. The only thing that saves me from winter is the thanksgiving gorging and all the sparkly sparkly stuff leading up to christmas and the new year. After that it's just bleak, bleak, bleak. Sigh.

But since everyone is throwing in their poems, Wallace Stevens's The Auroras of Autumn is brilliant... "Farewell to an idea..."

I agree winter sucks, but autumn is great for grilling (and football!). Who wants to grill when it's 90 degrees outside, code red Charm City air plus toxic charcoal fumes wafting in your face? (okay, I do, but it's not optimal)

I love the crisp breezy uber-bright sunny days we're about to get until November. And the cool nights? Snuggle time!

p.s. My favorite dark horse Keats is Bright Star, a sonnet... very nice.

Look at that, the Girl Squad is communicating amonst themselves -- and their power grows.

Well, Lissa, I liked it. Tant pis.

Go Bacon! It's happiness in all seasons.

Autumn is good because there are the baseball playoffs and World Series, but sad because my beloved O's are rarely there. I miss Jesse Orosco. He was like watching a mezozoic creature pitch. I fondly called him Jurassic Pork.

There is always the issue of QUALITY over quantity. (And is Bucky any less a Robert because he is also a Bucky?)

Bright Star. That's hot BBQ.

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors---

Note to LJ: moors, not moops!

BG, I'm mighty sleepy, but I will reconsider Wallace Stevens tomorrow, particularly "The Owl in the Sarcophagus". I spent some of my formative years in the same small neighborhood as Wallace Stevens (many years later) and we were both valedictorins of the same high school. Perhaps because he came to poetry later in life, I never locked in on too much of his stuff (except Ice Cream), but now that I am no longer young and arrogant, I may reconsider him. Literature is lost on youth. Tide now has bleach enhancers. Put your left foot in. Put your left foot out. Choose life. It's SHITE being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low, the scum of the f***ing earth, the most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the English, I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by. We are ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy! And all the fresh air in the world won't make any f***ing difference!

Which leads us back to Robert Blake. Oh no, I mean, William Blake.

Trainspotting Owl? You love that speech, don't you?