Sarah's Books - Used & Rare

I'm back from a week of bliss. And I am still feeling blissful, strangely, even though the week did come to an end (I hate that). But it's hard to feel bad about coming back to work when it's a perfect fall day in Maine, cool enough for a sweater but not cold enough for a jacket, bright sunshine and the air like crisp apples. Here's a watercolor I made on Friday, on another such day - the huge old maple across the road from my host's sister's house was just beginning to turn red, and the leaves were tossing in the strong southwest wind:

I thought instead of a huge long post about books and reading and my fabulous week (nine oil paintings, fifteen watercolors, many poems, my darling host - a great friend and wildly talented painter - not to mention my book purchases at the island bookshop) and this and that and the kitchen sink, I'd try this - when I came back to the shop this morning I opened The Practical Cogitator: The Thinker's Anthology at random and read a poem (p. 342), which sums up my present state of mind more than I could myself. Which is what poetry should do, isn't it - and speaking of poetry, don't forget, Mary Oliver reads tonight at Bates College (Olin Arts Center, 7:30 p.m., it's free, I'll be there). But for right now, this from Emily Brontë:

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain-side.