A Book of the Seasons: Basho's Commentary

If you make the least correct 

observation of nature . . . 

the season and life itself is prolonged.

  Henry Thoreau, April 7, 1853 

March. The frogs are now heard leaping into the ditches on your approach . . . I see the dimples where the croakers which were on the surface have dived . . . They are very wary, and instantly dive to the bottom . . . Later, in a pool behind Lee's Cliff, I hear them, – the waking up of the leafy pools.

The frogs are now heard

leaping into the ditches

on your approach. 

HDT ~ March 30, 1858

An old pond

a frog jumps in —

sound of water.

~ Basho

May. Young blueberries every where in bloom, and Viola pedata along the woodland paths, in high land.  Sorrel in bloom, beginning. I am eager to taste a handful.

Viola pedata

along the woodland paths

in high land.

HDT ~ May 21, 1852

On mountain path

greeted by

a wild violet.

~ Basho

June. All the phenomena of nature need be seen from the point of view of wonder and awe, like lightning; and, on the other hand, the lightning itself needs to be regarded with serenity, as the most familiar and innocent phenomena are.

Wonder awe

innocence serenity –

lightning!

HDT ~  June 27, 1852

How admirable!

to see lightning and not think

life is fleeting.

~ Basho

July. Before I rise I hear the song of birds from out the fog, like the bursting of its bubbles with music, the bead on liquids just uncorked . . . I am older than last year; the mornings are further between; the days are fewer.  

Birds from out the fog,

I am older than last year –

the days are fewer.

HDT ~ July 7, 1852

This autumn

why am I aging so?

Bird in a cloud.

~ Basho

July. This might be called the Haymaker's Moon, for I perceive that when the day has been oppressively warm the haymakers rest at noon and resume their mowing after sunset, sometimes quite into evening.

Oppressively warm,

the haymakers rest at noon –

the Haymaker's Moon.

HDT ~ July 13, 1851

All the field hands

enjoy a noontime nap after

the autumn moon.

~ Basho

August. The little bees have gone to sleep amid the clethra blossoms in the rain and are not yet aroused.

The little bees sleep

amid blossoms in the rain

and are not aroused.

HDT ~ August 4, 1852

A bee

staggers out

of the peony.

~Basho

August. It is the turning-point between afternoon and evening. The few sounds now heard, far or near, are delicious. It is not more dusky and obscure, but clearer than before. Each sound has a broad and deep relief of silence.

Clearer than before 

each sound has a broad and deep 

relief of silence. 

HDT  ~ August 11, 1853

The silence –

the voice of the cicadas

penetrates the rocks.

~ Basho

October. One crow lingers on a limb of the dead oak till I am within a dozen rods. There is strong and blustering northwest wind, and when it launches off to follow its comrades it is blown up and backward still nearer to me. 

One crow lingers

on a limb of the dead oak . . .

strong blustering wind.

HDT ~ October 6, 1860

On a bare branch 

a solitary crow –

autumn evening.

~ Basho 

October. The moon beginning to wane . . . The forest has lost so many leaves that its floor and paths are much more checkered with light. I hear no sound but the rustling of the withered leaves, and, on the wooded hilltops, the roar of the wind. Each tree resounds all night.

The roar of the wind

on the wooded hilltops – each

tree resounds all night.

HDT ~ October 28, 1852

All night long

listening to autumn winds

wandering the mountain.

~ Basho 

December.  For years my appetite was so strong that I fed — I browsed — on the pine forest's edge seen against the winter horizon . . . fed my imagination on them, — far-away, ideal trees . . . the value of the forest for me [was] in that line where it was relieved against the sky.

The pine forest's edge –

that far line seen against the

winter horizon.

HDT ~ December 3, 1856  

 

Coolness

the clean lines

of the wild pine.

~ Basho

December. The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!  This evening for the first time the new moon is reflected from the frozen snow-crust.

Winter solitude –

the new moon reflected from

the frozen snow crust.

HDT ~ December 8, 1850

Winter solitude –

in a world of one color

the sound of wind.

~Basho

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, Basho's Commentary

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau

 "A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-Basho

A Book of the Seasons, The Season for Fungi

 I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures completes the world,

what kinds of birds come with what flowers. 

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

This certainly is 

the season for fungi.

August 24, 1853

The humblest fungus 

betrays a life akin to my own.

It is a successful poem in its kind.  

October 10, 1858

August 15, 2026

(avesong)

August 1. Toadstools shoot up in the yards and paths.  August 1, 1856

August 7. The past has been a remarkably wet week, and now the earth is strewn with fungi. The earth itself is mouldy. I see a white mould in the path. Great toadstools stand in the woods, but the mushroom growth of a night is already attacked by many worms and insects. I see in the pasture grass in many places small white roundish fungi, like eggs. August 7, 1853

August 10. Toadstools, which are now very abundant in the woods since the rain, are of various colors, — some red and shining, some polished white, some regularly brown- spotted, some pink, some light-blue, — buttons. August 10, 1853

August 10. In Clintonia Swamp I see a remarkable yellow fungus about the base of some grass growing in a tuft. It is a jelly, shaped like a bodkin or a pumpkin’s stigma, two inches long, in vesting the base of the grass blades, a quarter to a half inch thick, tapering to the grass each way and covered with a sort of moist meal. It was strong-scented and disagreeable. August 10, 1857

August 12. The most interesting domes I behold are not those of Oriental temples and palaces, but of the toadstools. On this knoll in the swamp they are little pyramids of Cheops or Cholula, which also stand on the plain, very delicately shaded off. They have burst their brown tunics as they expanded, leaving only a clear-brown apex, and on every side these swelling roofs or domes are patched and shingled with the fragments, delicately shaded off thus into every tint of brown to the edge. As if this creation of a night would thus imitate the weather-stains of centuries. Toads' temples. So charming is gradation!  August 12, 1856

August 14. In the low woodland paths full of rank weeds, there are countless great fungi of various forms and colors, the produce of the warm rains and muggy weather of a week ago, now rapidly dissolving. The ground is covered with foul spots where they have dissolved, and for most of my walk the air is tainted with a musty, carrion like odor, in some places very offensive, so that I at first suspected a dead horse or cow. They impress me like humors or pimples on the face of the earth, toddy- blossoms, by which it gets rid of its corrupt blood. A sort of excrement they are.It never occurred to me before to-day that those different forms belong to one species. Some I see just pushing up in the form of blunt cones, thrusting the leaves aside, and, further along, some which are perfectly flat on top, probably the same in full bloom, and others decaying and curved up into a basin at the edges. August 14, 1853

August 14. The low wood-paths are strewn with toadstools now, and I begin to perceive their musty scent, great tumbae  or, as R. W. E. says, tuguria-crowding one another by the path-side when there was not a fellow in sight; great towers that have fallen and made the plain shake; ponderous wheels that have lost their fellows, broken their axles, abandoned by the toady or swampy teamsters. Some whose eaves have been nibbled apparently by turtle. Ricketson says he saw a turtle eating a toadstool once. Some great dull-yellow towers, towers of strength, to judge from their mighty columns. August 14, 1856

August 16. Yesterday also in the Marlborough woods, perceived everywhere that offensive mustiness of decaying fungi.  August 16, 1853

August 19. In the radula swamp . . . some peculiarly bright orange toadstools with a wavy edge. August 19, 1856 

August 23. The scent of decaying fungi in woods is quite offensive now in many places, like carrion even. I see many red ones eaten more or less in the paths, nibbled out on the edges. August 23, 1856

August 24. I see some black and some greenish light slate-colored fungi. This certainly is the season for fungi. August 24, 1853

August 26.  I perceived for the first time, this afternoon, in one place, a slight mouldy scent. There are very few fungi in a dry summer like this. August 26, 1859

August 31. An orange-colored fungus. August 31, 1853

September 1. We go admiring the pure and delicate tints of fungi on the surface of the damp swamp there, following up along the north side of the brook past the right of the old camp. There are many very beautiful lemon-yellow ones of various forms, some shaped like buttons, some becoming finely scalloped on the edge, some club-shaped and hollow, of the most delicate and rare but decided tints, contrasting well with the decaying leaves about them. There are others also pure white, others a wholesome red, others brown, and some even a light indigo-blue above and beneath and throughout. When colors come to be taught in the schools, as they should be, both the prism (or the rainbow) and these fungi should be used by way of illustration, and if the pupil does not learn colors, he may learn fungi, which perhaps is better. September 1, 1856

September 6. Thought my great dish-cover fungus a Coprolus (?) (so called from growing in dung?). September 6, 1856

September 10. Last year, for the last three weeks of August, the woods were filled with the strong musty scent of decaying fungi, but this year I have seen very few fungi and have not noticed that odor at all. September 10, 1854

September 12.  Have seen the pigeon’s-egg fungus in pastures some time.  September 12, 1858

September 18. There are many large toadstools, pecked apparently by birds.

September 18, 1852

September 21. My red ball fungus blossoms in the path in the midst of its jelly .  September 21, 1852

September 21.And now at last I see a few toadstools, — the election-cake (the yellowish, glazed over) and the taller, brighter-yellow above. Those shell-less slugs which eat apples eat these also.  September 21, 1859

September 23. I see everywhere in the shady yew wood those pretty round-eyed fungus-spots on the upper leaves of the blue-stemmed goldenrod, contrasting with the few bright-yellow flowers above them, -- yellowish-white rings (with a slate-colored centre), surrounded by green. September 23, 1860

September 24. In Wood Thrush Path at Flint's Pond, a great many of the geiropodium fungus now shed their dust. When closed it is a roundish or conical orange-colored fungus three quarters of an inch in diameter, covered with a mucilaginous matter. It is pink-red inside and the thick outer skin of many have already curled back (it splits into segments and curls parallel to the axis of the plant) to reveal the pinkish fawn-colored puffball capped with a red dimple or crown. This is a hollow bag. When you touch it, it spurts forth a yellowish-white powder three or four inches through its orifice. September 24, 1860

September 26.  I see, just up, the large light-orange toad-stools with white spots. September 26, 1860

October 2.  We had all our dog-days in September this year. It was too dry before, even for fungi. Only the last three weeks have we had any fungi to speak of. Nowadays I see most of the election-cake fungi, with crickets and slugs eating them. October 2, 1859

 October 4. See crickets eating the election-cake toadstools. October 4, 1858

•      October 10, 1858 ("I find the under sides of the election-cake fungi there covered with pink-colored fleas");
•      October 20, 1856 (“I notice, as elsewhere of late, a great many brownish-yellow (and some pink) election-cake fungi, eaten by crickets; about three inches in diameter.");
•       October 16, 1859 ("That election-cake fungus which is still growing (as for some months)      appears to be a Boletus"); 
•       October 20, 1857 ("I see the yellowish election-cake fungi.");
•       October 29, 1855 ("There are many fresh election-cake toadstools amid the pitch pine”);
•      See also Concord: A Sense of Place, October 20, 2015, Election-cake Fungus Mystery.

October 5. This before they are turned to dust. Large chocolate-colored ones have long since burst and are spread out wide like a shallow dish. October 5, 1856

October 10. I find the under sides of the election-cake fungi there covered with pink-colored fleas, apparently poduras, skipping about when it is turned up to the light. The simplest and most lumpish fungus has a peculiar interest to us, compared with a mere mass of earth, because it is so obviously organic and related to ourselves, however mute. It is the expression of an idea; growth according to a law; matter not dormant, not raw, but inspired, appropriated by spirit. If I take up a handful of earth, however separately interesting the particles may be, their relation to one another appears to be that of mere juxtaposition generally. I might have thrown them together thus. But the humblest fungus betrays a life akin to my own. It is a successful poem in its kind. There is suggested something superior to any particle of matter, in the idea or mind which uses and arranges the particles. October 10, 1858

October 11.  I find that the rough, white, crystalled-surfaced pigeon-egg fungus (one was noticed in report of October 5th) are puffballs. The outer thick white coat peels off first. I see it so now, but not in segments like the stellata. October 11, 1856

October 14. That coarse yellowish fungus is very common in the paths in woods of late, for a month, often picked by birds, often decayed, often mashed by the foot like a piece of pumpkin, defiling and yellowing the grass, as if a liquor (or dust) distilled from them. October 14, 1852

October 14.  At the head of the path by the pond, I saw a red squirrel, only a rod off in a white pine, eating a toadstool. It was a slightly convex white disk, (then) two inches in diameter. I saw where he had bitten off its white stump within a few feet of the base of the tree. I should not have called it an edible one; but he knows. He held it vertically with a paw on each side and what had been the lower side toward him, and was nibbling off the inside edge very fast, turning it round from time to time and letting some fragments drop, pausing to look at me. As a boy might nibble a biscuit. Are nuts scarce? I think it was not the edible one; was too big.  October 14, 1857

October 15  I saw the other day a cricket standing on his head in a chocolate-colored (inside) fungus, only his tail-yards visible. He had sunk a well an inch deep, and was even then sinking it, perpendicularly, unconscious of what was going on above. October 15, 1857 

October 16. On the south side of the Turnpike, just below Everett's meadow, a rare and remarkable fungus, such as I have heard of but never seen before. The whole height six and three quarters inches, two thirds of it being buried in the sphagnum. It may be divided into three parts, pileus, stem, and base, — or scrotum, for it is a perfect phallus. One of those fungi named impudicus, I think. This is very similar to if not the same with that represented in Loudon's Encyclopedia and called "Phallus impudicus, Stinking Morel, very fetid." In all respects a most disgusting object, yet very suggestive . . . October 16, 1856

October 17.  Notice some of the fungus called spunk, very large, on the large white oak in Love Lane, eight or nine feet from the ground on the east side, on a protuberance where a limb was formerly cut off. It is now green and moist, of a yellowish color, composed of several flakes one above the other; the length of the shelf, or chord of the arc, twenty-one inches; depth from the tree, or width of shelf, about one foot. October 17, 1856

October 20. Amid the young pitch pines in the pasture behind I notice, as elsewhere of late, a great many brownish-yellow (and some pink) election-cake fungi, eaten by crickets; about three inches in diameter. Some of those spread chocolate-colored ones have many grubs in them, though dry and dusty. October 20, 1856

October 20. I see the yellowish election-cake fungi. October 20, 1857

October 22. The rain and dampness have given birth to a new crop of mushrooms. October 22, 1851

October 27. See nowadays concave chocolate-colored fungi passing into dust on the edges, close on the ground in pastures. October 27, 1853

October 29. There are many fresh election-cake toadstools amid the pitch pine. October 29, 1855

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Season for Fungi

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2026

A Book of the Seasons: A Pleasing Melancholy

A year is made up of a certain series and 

number of sensations and thoughts 

which have their language in nature . . .

 Each experience reduces itself to a mood of the mind. 

Henry Thoreau, June 6, 1857

I hear a cricket

and am penetrated with 

the sense of autumn. 

August 4, 1851

A sound reminds me

past autumns, lapse of time – so

little brought to pass.

August 18, 1856

May 24. Our most glorious experiences are a kind of regret . . . the painful, plaintively sad surprise of our Genius remembering our past lives and contemplating what is possible . . . it is glorious for us to be able to regret even such an existence.  May 24, 1851

July 31.  I hear the distant sound of a flail, and thoughts of autumn occupy my mind, and the memory of past years. July 31, 1856

August 17.   I feel as if this coolness would do me good. If it only makes my life more pensive! Why should pensiveness be akin to sadness? There is a certain fertile sadness which I would not avoid, but rather earnestly seek. It is positively joyful to me. It saves my life from being trivial. My life flows with a deeper current, no longer as a shallow and brawling stream, parched and shrunken by the summer heats. This coolness comes to condense the dews and clear the atmosphere. August 17, 1851

August 18. It plainly makes men sad to think. Hence pensiveness is akin to sadness.  August 18, 1851

August 18. What means this sense of lateness that so comes over one now? — now is the season of fruits; but where is our fruit? August 18, 1853 

August 18.  I hear the steady (not intermittent) shrilling of apparently the alder cricket, clear, loud, and autumnal, a season sound. Hear it, but see it not. It reminds me of past autumns and the lapse of time, suggests a pleasing, thoughtful melancholy, like the sound of the flail.  Such preparation, such an outfit has our life, and so little brought to pass!  August 18, 1856 

August 20.  There is more shadow in the landscape than a week ago, methinks, and the creak of the cricket sounds cool and steady. The grass and foliage and landscape generally are of a more thought-inspiring color, suggest what some perchance would call a pleasing melancholy. August 20, 1858

August 28. In my experience, at least of late years, all that depresses a man's spirits is the sense of remissness, — duties neglected, unfaithfulness, — or shamming, impurity, falsehood, selfishness, inhumanity, and the like.  August 28, 1854

August 28. Perchance you have worried yourself, despaired of the world, meditated the end of life, and all things seemed rushing to destruction; but nature has steadily and serenely advanced with a turtle's pace. August 28, 1856

October 26. I awoke this morning to infinite regret. October 26, 1851

October 31. I hear the sound of the flailing . . . and gradually draw near to it from the woods, thinking many things.  October 31, 1860

See also 

A Book of the Seasons,   by Henry Thoreau, Midsummer midlife blues

A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  A Pleasing Melancholy

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdtmelancholy

A Book of the Seasons: Zizania (Wild Rice)

 [Zizania aquatica var. aquatica (Annual wild rice)]

 I would make a chart of our life,

know why just this circle of creatures

completes the world.

Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852

 Tall and slender

 zizania panicle 

waving on the shore.

August 6, 1854

 Annually we 

gather wild rice with grateful 

awe, like Chippewas. 

September 2, 1856

By the water's edge

the zizania stands still, 

spires empty of grain.

October 25, 1852

July 22. Zizania, a day, with a handsome light-green panicle a foot or more long, a long slender stem, and corn-like leaves frequently more than an inch wide. July 22, 1854 

July 24. The zizania, some days . . . At least two kinds of grass as tall as the zizania have preceded it along the river. July 24, 1853

July 27 Zizania scarce out some days at least. July 27, 1856

August 6. Interesting here and there the tall and slender zizania waving on the shore, with its light panicle eighteen inches or more in length. August 6, 1854

August 12. Zizania several days. August 12, 1860

August 14.  The zizania now makes quite a show along the river. August 14, 1859

August 15. Wild [rice], apparently in prime. This is quite interesting and handsome, so tall and loose. The lower, spreading and loosely drooping, dangling or blown one side like a flag, staminate branches of its ample panicle are of a lively yellowish green, contrasting with the very distant upright pistillate branches, suggesting a spear with a small flag at the base of its head. It is our wild grain, unharvested. August 15, 1858

August 16. Zizania aquatica, Indian or Canadian rice, or water oats, like slender corn. How long? August 16, 1852

August 18. The zizania on the north side of the river near the Holt, or meadow watering-place, is very conspicuous and abundant. August 18, 1854  

August 20. The zizania is pretty abundant in the river, in rear of Joseph Hosmer's . . . Very many water-plants – pontederias, lilies, zizania, etc., etc. – are now going to seed, prepared to feed the migrating waterfowl, etc. August 20, 1854

August 24. The zizania is the greater part out of bloom; i. e., the yellowish - anthered (?) stamens are gone; the wind has blown them away. August 24, 1858

September 2 We are dwelling amid these wild plants still, we are eating the huckleberries which lately only the Indian ate and dried, we are raising and eating his wild and nutritive maize, and if we have imported wheat, it is but our wild rice, which we annually gather with grateful awe, like Chippewas. September 2, 1856

September 3.  Zizania still. September 3, 1858

September 5.  I find some zizania grains almost black. September 5, 1854

September 15. The grain of the wild rice is all green yet. September 15, 1859

September 16. See no zizania seed ripe, or black, yet, but almost all is fallen. September 16, 1860

September 24. The zizania ripe, shining black, cylindrical kernels, five eighths of an inch long. September 24, 1852

September 25. The zizania fruit is green yet, but mostly dropped or plucked. Does it fall, or do birds pluck it? September 25, 1858

September 30. The wild rice is almost entirely fallen or eaten, apparently by some insect, but I see some green and also black grains left. September 30, 1859

October 25. The sheen on the water blinds my eyes. The zizania stands still, with its slender spires empty of grain, by the water's edge. October 25, 1852

See also:.

Northern woodlands, New England’s Wild Rice ("The season for gathering rice is short, about 10 to 14 days at the beginning of September.")

Vermont Fish and Wildllife Department, Wild Rice Marsh ("Flowers are borne in a large panicle at the top of the plant, with male flowers on the lower spreading branches of the panicle and the female flowers at the top. The dark grain, or caryopsis, of wild rice matures in the early fall")

US Forest Service, Annual Wildrice

Illustration by Adelaide Tyrol

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Zizania (wild rice)

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026