I've been feeling a little homesick and nostalgic lately--with the holidays I suppose thoughts always turn towards home.  And usually, what you are longing for is a return to the past--days that were perhaps more carefree and innocent.  Terry Redlin, one of South Dakota's best known artists, specialized in portraying those glimpses back into a way of life that no longer exists.  I've always loved a beautiful full moon, and the picture below captures it beautifully, don't you think?  And of course what better poem to offer today than Longfellow's 'The Harvest Moon', whose mystic splendor surely rests on the scene below.  Anyone want to join me at the dance?  I bet there's apple cider and donuts inside!


 

The Harvest Moon

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is the Harvest Moon!  On gilded vanes

  And roofs of villages, on woodland crests

  And their aerial neighborhoods of nests

  Deserted, on the curtained window-panes

Of rooms where children sleep, on country lanes

  And harvest-fields, its mystic splendor rests!

  Gone are the birds that were our summer guests,

  With the last sheaves return the laboring wains!

All things are symbols: the external shows

  Of Nature have their image in the mind,

  As flowers and fruits and falling of the leaves;

The song-birds leave us at the summer's close,

  Only the empty nests are left behind,

  And pipings of the quail among the sheaves.

If you have enjoyed the beautiful paintings I've highlighted yesterday and today, you might want to consider a trip to the Terry Redlin Art Center, a magnificent building designed by Terry's son, Charles, as the permanent home of his father's original oil paintings.  Since Terry always attributed his interest in outdoor themes to his childhood in Watertown and was grateful for the fact that he was able to attend art school via a South Dakota scholarship for disabled students, the art center is a gift from the Redlin family to the great state of South Dakota and the people of Watertown.  It's worth a visit if you are in the area!  Oh...and did I mention he went to the same school as my dad?  No wonder his paintings make me nostalgic for home!