My poetry Friday post included a link to the poem October by Jacob Polley. I fell in love with the language of the poem, as well as the image of autumn it conjured. Since I'm thinking fall, Halloween, and all the other great things that come with this month, I thought it would be fun to write a poem to/about October.
Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
I love October, so this stretch is a treat for me. I read Elaine's review of Button Up (by Alice Schertle) this morning, so I was thinking of both clothing and October. Here's my daily poem:
ReplyDeleteOctober Wears…
a pink satin nightgown
each morning,
goodbye colors
bleeding brightly
beside her black coffee.
At noon, she slips on
a Parrish blue hat and
golden shawl and meets
Summer for pasta salad,
talking about long days past.
By evening, she has changed
into navy velvet,
smoke perfume,
and diamond choker,
determined to show
her beauty is not
confined to sunlight.
--Laura Purdie Salas
Thanks, Tricia! Love these Stretches.
It is cold enough to make me
ReplyDeletetry to keep my feet dry,
but not get too mad if my foot slips into the October river.
No river is as beautiful as my
October river.
The sun is right, the leaves are right, the snakes are not hogging the place like they did all summer.
I take my boat, balancing
and muscling it down the rocky, trashy bank
to the edge where it
slips into the October river.
October
ReplyDeleteHoney dipped from a pot
by the hand of autumn is
swirled through a teacup.
Black tea sweetened
lightly, cooled ever
so slightly. You sip
the honeyed liquid
slowly, swishing
it around your mouth,
squeezing it between
your teeth. You swallow,
and underneath the
sweetness you can faintly
taste the acerbity of what
remains in the bottom
of your cup.
October
ReplyDeleteholds the secret to spring
seeds tucked in soil blankets
buried beneath broken leaves
cradled by earthworms
rest in the
dark
damp
dirt
waiting for warmth
Leaf Peepers
ReplyDeleteWe have already seen
the first hardy thrust
of red maple leaves
before the Leaf Peepers arrive.
They come in buses with blue-tinted windows,
and license plates from places
all the way down to Florida.
They come through only once,
to view the big picture, the panorama,
the full palette of Fall.
I wish they could understand
That autumn is a glorious unfolding,
a slow strip tease
of green to gold, to orange, to purple, to red.
This week the aspen on the corner
by the VFW building changes
like a shy young bride.
Tomorrow a maple does the full monty
in the space between my house and my neighbor’s.
We New Englanders are not leaf peepers,
never claimed to be any such.
Hell--we are total autumn voyeurs.
c Jane Yolen 2009 all rights reserved
This crosses nicely with Read Write Poem's monthly mini-challenge... I wrote Elbow Month
ReplyDeleteWho Walks?
ReplyDeleteWho walks the blue twilight,
footsteps cool as a shiver?
Who drifts like October wind,
stirring sorrowful leaves?
Who searches for lost days,
once bright as pumpkins?
Who fades by morning,
Leaving only bone dust?
Who has no name,
who has no stone?
--Kate Coombs (Book Aunt)
Wonderful to see all these great poems. I especially love these bits:
ReplyDeleteSam: if my foot slips into the October river.
Diane: by the hand of autumn
and
the acerbity of what
remains in the bottom
of your cup
Susan: seeds tucked in soil blankets
Jane: autumn is a glorious unfolding,
a slow strip tease
and
a maple does the full monty
in the space between my house and my neighbor’s.
Kate: Who searches for lost days,
once bright as pumpkins?
Tiel: A hinge
between two quarters of the year
What a sumptuous group of poems!
I did my daily poems yesterday and today on October, too, Tricia. Stop me, before I poem again.
October…
dances all day
a clattering whirl
of click-clacking
pile-stacking
gold skeleton leaves
then
pours into night
to the silent sky
to the high-flying
summer’s-dying
wild goose cry
--Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved
By October...
My lunch balance is zero.
My shoes are sloppy.
My jeans have hot chocolate stains.
My classes are boring, even French!
(Est-ce que je peux faire une sieste pendant la classe?)
My teachers all know me.
I’m ready for summer.
--Laura Purdie Salas, all rights reserved
Simply Autumn
ReplyDeleteAutumn ascends
from flowering summer
bringing opposing
feelings to all.
If you love
hot sultry summer,
you just might loathe
leaves when they fall.
They always signal
cold shivery winter;
nature's long fervent
motherly call.
An Ode to October.
ReplyDeleteThe names are out of place,
From September to December;
You should be eighth not tenth,
My dearest friend October.
How mean it is to have a name,
That doesn't mean your whereabouts;
But has you shuffled two months forward,
Unaware that there are doubts.
So here's my plan to right this wrong,
And have your name sound sober;
The year must always start in March,
With apologies owed to October.
[Copyright 11-10-09 Michael Coldham-Fussell]