In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the
crowning glory of the year,
bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil.
And at no season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time, do we get such
superb colour effects as from August to November.
- Rose G. Kingsley, The Autumn Garden, 1905
Corn and grain, corn and grain,
All that falls shall rise again.
- Wiccan Harvest Chant
There is no season when such pleasant and
sunny spots
may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on
the feelings, as now in October.
- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Spring comes with flowers, autumn with the
moon, summer with the breeze,
winter with snow. When idle concerns don't fill your thoughts,
that's your best season.
- Wu-Men
A child looking at ruins grows younger
but cold
and wants to wake to a new name
I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows
and the wren laughs in the early shade now
come again shining glance in your good time
naked air late morning
my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering wild rose hips
in the sun
- W. S. Merwin, The Love of
October
The clump of maples on the hill,
And this one near the door,
Seem redder, quite a lot, this year
Than last, or year before;
I wonder if it's jest because
I Love the Old State more!
- David
L. Cady, October in Vermont
The leaves fall patiently
Nothing remembers or grieves
The river takes to the sea
The yellow drift of leaves. - Sara Teasdale
Youth is like spring, an over-praised season
more remarkable
for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower
season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
- Samuel Butler
She had only to stand in
the orchard, to put her hand on a little
crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the
goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last.
- Willa Cather
You ought to know that October
is the first Spring month.
- Karel Capek
Perhaps the most famous icon of
the holiday is the jack-o-lantern.
Various authorities attribute it to either Scottish or Irish origin. However, it seems clear that it was used as a lantern by people who traveled the road this night, the scary face to frighten away spirits or faeries who might otherwise lead one astray. Set on porches and in windows, they cast the same spell of protection over the household. (The American pumpkin seems to have forever superseded the European gourd as the jack-o-lantern of choice.) Bobbing for apples may well represent the remnants of a Pagan 'baptism' rite called a 'seining', according to some writers. The water-filled tub is a latter-day Cauldron of
Regeneration, into which the novice's head is immersed. The fact that the participant in this folk game was usually blindfolded with hands tied behind the back also puts one in mind of a traditional
Craft initiation ceremony.
- All
Hallow's Eve. Mike Nichols
The gilding of the Indian summer mellowed
the pastures far and wide.
The russet woods stood ripe to be stripped, but were yet full of leaf.
The purple of heath-bloom, faded but not withered, tinged the hills... Fieldhead gardens bore the seal of gentle decay; ... its time of
flowers and even of fruit was over. - Charlotte Brontë
Everyone must take time to sit
and watch the leaves turn.
- Elizabeth Lawrence
Stone Lagoon and sky
become one--
deepening fog.
-
Michael P. Garofalo, Above the Fog
Colors burst in wild
explosions
Fiery, flaming shades of fall
All in accord with my pounding heart
Behold the autumn-weaver
In bronze and yellow dying
Colors unfold into dreams
In hordes of a thousand and one
The bleeding
Unwearing their masks to the last notes of summer
Their flutes and horns in nightly swarming
Colors burst within
Spare me those unending fires
Bestowed upon the flaming shades of fall
- Dark Tranquility, With
the Flaming Shades of Fall
Between the heavens
and the earth
The way now opens to bring forth
The Hosts of those who went on before;
Hail! We see them now come through the Open Door.
Now the veils of worlds are thin;
To move out you must move in.
Let the Balefires now be made,
Mine the spark within them laid.
Move beyond the fiery screen,
Between the seen and the unseen;
Shed your anger and your fear,
Live anew in a new year!
- Lore
of the Door
Clouds gather, treetops toss and sway;
But pour us wine, an old one!
That we may turn this dreary day
To golden, yes, to golden!
Autumn has come, but never fear,
Wait but a little while yet,
Spring will be here, the skies will clear,
And fields stand deep in violets.
The heavenly blue of fresh new days
Oh, friend, you must employ them
Before they pass away. Be brave!
Enjoy them; oh, enjoy them!
- Theodor Storm, A Song in October
October's poplars are flaming torches
lighting the way to winter. - Nova Bair
How innocent were these Trees, that
in
Mist-green May, blown by a prospering breeze,
Stood garlanded and gay;
Who now in sundown glow
Of serious color clad confront me with their show
As though resigned and sad,
Trees, who unwhispering stand umber, bronze, gold;
Pavilioning the land for one grown tired and old;
Elm, chestnut, aspen and pine, I am merged in you,
Who tell once more in tones of time,
Your foliaged farewell.
- Siegfried Sassoon, October Trees
Ye cannot
rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather.
October's the month
When the smallest breeze
Gives us a shower
Of autumn leaves.
Bonfires and pumpkins,
Leaves sailing down -
October is red
And golden and brown.
- Can
Teach Songs
Listen! the wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings,
now for October eves!
- Humbert Wolfe
O hushed
October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
- Robert
Frost, October
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
- John Keats, To
Autumn
The morns are meeker than
they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer
scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.
- Emily Dickinson, Nature
27 - Autumn
Burning the small dead
branches
broke from beneath
thick spreading
whitebark pine.
A hundred summers
snowmelt rock and air
hiss in a twisted bough.
- Gary Snyder, Burning the Small Dead
Bittersweet October. The mellow,
messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause
between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.
- Carol Bishop Hipps
Gardening imparts an organic perspective on the passage of time.
- William Cowper
The harvest moon hangs round and high
It dodges clouds high in the sky,
The stars wink down their love and mirth
The Autumn season is giving birth.
Oh, it must be October
The leaves of red bright gold and brown,
To Mother Earth come tumbling down,
The breezy nights the ghostly sights,
The eerie spooky far off sounds
Are signs that it's October.
The pumpkins yellow,. big and round
Are carried by costumed clumsy clowns
It's Halloween - let's celebrate.
- Pearl N. Sorrels, It Must be October
The winds gives me
Enough fallen leaves
To make a fire
- Ryokan
Beauty is one of the rare things that
do not lead to doubt of God.
- Jean Anouilh
All still when summer is over
stand shocks in the field,
nothing left to whisper,
not even good-bye, to the wind.
After summer was over
we knew winter would come:
we knew silence would wait,
tall, patient calm.
- William Stafford, Tragic Song
Lady Autumn, Queen of the Harvest,
I have seen You in the setting Sun
with Your long auburn tresses
blowing in the cool air that surrounds You.
Your crown of golden leaves is jeweled
with amber, amethyst, and rubies.
Your long, flowing purple robe stretches across the horizon.
In Your hands You hold the ripened fruits.
At Your feet the squirrels gather acorns.
Black crows perch on Your outstretched arms.
All around You the leaves are falling.
You sit upon Your throne and watch
the dying fires of the setting Sun
shine forth its final colors in the sky.
The purple and orange lingers
and glows like burning embers.
Then all colors fade into the twilight.
Lady Autumn, You are here at last.
We thank You for Your rewards.
We have worked hard for these gifts.
Lady Autumn, now grant us peace and rest.
- Deirdre Akins
l(a
le
af
fa
ll
s)
one
li
ness
- e.e. cummings
Halloween.
Sly does it. Tiptoe catspaws. Slide and creep.
But why? What for? How? Who? When! Where did it all begin?
'You don't know, do you?' asks Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud climbing out
under the pile of leaves under the Halloween Tree. 'You don't really know!'
- Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree
October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came-
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
- George Cooper, October's
Party
silence
seeks the center
of every tree and rock,
that thing we hold closest-
the end of songs
- Michael
McClintock, Letters in Time
I see that old hammock out back,
Swaying lightly in the wind
That Autumn oft expels in October,
Waiting for me to come and dream,
But the bulbs that fill my tired Hands,
leaving trails of rusty earth
Must first be laid to rest,
I must tend to their needs first.
- B. R. Jording, Fall Planting
To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. Against the shadow
of veiled possibility my workdays stand
in a most asking light. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song. - Wendell Berry
Delicious autumn! My very soul
is wedded to it,
and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns.
- George Eliot
All
things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.
- Thomas Wolfe
To appreciate the wild and
sharp flavors of these October fruits, it is necessary that you be breathing the sharp October or November air. What is sour in
the house a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these apples might be
labeled, “To be eaten in the wind.” It takes a savage or wild taste to appreciate a
wild fruit. . . The era of the Wild Apple will soon be past. It is a fruit
which will probably become extinct in New England. I fear that he who walks over
these fields a century hence will not know the pleasure of knocking off wild
apples.
Ah, poor soul, there are many pleasures which you will not know! . . . the
end of it all will be that we shall be compelled to look for our apples in a barrel.
- Henry David Thoreau
There ought to be gardens for all months in
the year,
in which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season.
- Sir Francis Bacon
Heat lingers
As days are still long;
Early mornings are cool
While autumn is still young.
Dew on the lotus
Scatters pure perfume;
Wind on the bamboos
Gives off a gentle tinkling.
I am idle and lonely,
Lying down all day,
Sick and decayed;
No one asks for me;
Thin dusk before my gates,
Cassia blossoms inch deep.
- Po
Chu-i (772-864), Autumn Coolness Translated by Howard S. Levy and Henry Wells
When clear October suns unfold
mallee tips of red and gold
children on their way to school
discover tadpoles in a pool,
iceplants sheathed in beaded glass
spider orchids and shivery grass,
webs with globes of dew alight
budgerigars on their first flight,
tottery lambs and a stilty foal
a papers slough that a snake shed whole,
and a bronzewing's nest of twigs so few
that both the sky and the eggs show through.
- Flexmore Hudson, Mallee
in October
Wheels of baled hay bask in October sun:
Gold circles strewn across the sloping field,
They seem arranged as if each one
Has found its place; together they appeal
To some glimpsed order in my mind
Preceding my chance pausing here --
A randomness that also seems designed.
Gold circles strewn across the sloping field
Evoke a silence deep as my deep fear
Of emptiness; I feel the scene requires
A listener who can respond with words, yet who
Prolongs the silence that I still desire,
Relieved as clacking crows come flashing through,
Whose blackness shows chance radiance of fire.
Yet stillness in the field remains for everyone:
Wheels of baled hay bask in October sun.
- Robert Pack, Baled Hay
Now that she is middle-aged, my wife
likes to stand before the window
and comb her hair
Well, it's a marvelous night
for a Moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush
- Van Morrison, Moondance
Withered vines, gnarled trees, twilight
crows,
river flowing beneath the little bridge,
past someone's home.
The wind blows from the west
where the sun sets, it blows
across the ancient road,
across the bony horse,
across the despairing man
who stands at heaven's edge.
- Ma
Chih-Yuan, Meditation in Autumn
Translated by David Lunde
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall
- Autumn Leaves, Lyrics by Johnny Mercer and Jacques
Prévert
When gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;
When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;
When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;
When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;
When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather. - Helen Hunt Jackson, October's Bright Blue Weather
I will dance
The dance of dying days
And sleeping life.
I will dance
In cold, dead leaves
A bending, whirling human flame.
I will dance
As the Horned God rides
Across the skies.
I will dance
To the music of His hounds
Running, baying in chorus.
I will dance
With the ghosts of those
Gone before.
I will dance
Between the sleep of life
And the dream of death.
I will dance
On Samhain's dusky eye,
I will dance.
- Karen Bergquist, An Autumn Chant
Like someone who opens a door of glass
or sees his own reflection in it
when he returns from the woods
the light falls so variously here at the end of October
that nothing is whole or can be made into a whole
because the cracks are too uncertain and constantly moving.
Then you experience the miracle
of entering into yourself like a diamond
in glass, enjoying its own fragility
when the storm carries everything else away
including the memory of a freckled girlfriend
out over the bluing lake hidden behind the bare hills.
- Henrik Nordbrandt, The Glass Door
Translated by Thomas Satterlee
The green elm
with the one great bough of gold
Lets leaves into the grass slip, one by one, --
The short hill grass, the mushrooms small milk-white,
Harebell and scabious and tormentil,
That blackberry and gorse, in dew and sun,
Bow down to; and the wind travels too light
To shake the fallen birch leaves from the fern;
The gossamers wander at their own will.
At heavier steps than birds' the squirrels scold.
The rich scene has grown fresh again and new
As Spring and to the touch is not more cool
Than it is warm to the gaze; and now I might
As happy be as earth is beautiful,
Were I some other or with earth could turn
In alternation of violet and rose,
Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due,
And gorse that has no time not to be gay.
But if this be not happiness, -- who knows?
Some day I shall think this a happy day,
And this mood by the name of melancholy
Shall no more blackened and obscured be.
- Edward
Thomas, October
Look, how those steep woods on
the mountain's face
Burn, burn against the sunset; now the cold
Invades our very noon: the year's grown old,
Mornings are dark, and evenings come apace.
The vines below have lost their purple grace,
And in Forreze the white wrack backward rolled,
Hangs to the hills tempestuous, fold on fold,
And moaning gusts make desolate all the place.
- Hilaire Belloc, October
Looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
An thinking of the days that are no more.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
Tonight as the barrier between the
two realms grows thin,
Spirits walk amongst us, once again.
They be family, friends and foes,
Pets and wildlife, fishes and crows.
But be we still mindful of the Wee Folke at play,
Elves, fey, brownies, and sidhe.
Some to trick, some to treat,
Some to purposely misguide our feet.
Stay we on the paths we know
As planting sacred apples we go.
This Feast I shall leave on my doorstep all night.
In my window one candle shall burn bright,
To help my loved ones find their way
As they travel this eve, and this night, until day.
Bless my offering, both Lady and Lord
Of breads and fruits, greens and gourd.
"The Romans
adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain
was assimilated
into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in
October, such as their day to honor
Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple,
which might explain the
origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.
The thrust of the
practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit
possession
waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on
a more ceremonial role.
The custom of
Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their
country's
potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping
over outhouses and
unhinging fence gates.
The custom of
trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but
with a ninth-century
European custom called souling. On
November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to
village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with
currants. The more soul cakes the
beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of
the dead relatives of the
donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time
after death, and that prayer,
even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.
The Jack-o-lantern
custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named
Jack, who
was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree.
Jack then carved an image
of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal
with the devil that, if he would
never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree."
- Canuckville,
Useless Matter That Doesn't Really Matter
I know the year is dying,
Soon the summer will be dead.
I can trace it in the flying
Of the black crows overhead;
I can hear it in the rustle
Of the dead leaves as I pass,
And the south wind's plaintive sighing
Through the dry and withered grass.
Ah, 'tis then I love to wander,
Wander idly and alone,
Listening to the solemn music
Of sweet nature's undertone;
Wrapt in thoughts I cannot utter,
Dreams my tongue cannot express,
Dreams that match the autumn's sadness
In their longing tenderness.
- Mortimer Crane Brown, Autumn Dreams
A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.
- Denise Levertov, Variation on a Theme by Rilke
Harvest home, harvest home!
We've plowed, we've sowed
We've reaped, we've mowed
And brought safe home
Every load.
Now's the time when
children's noses
All become as red as roses
And the colour of their faces
Makes me think of orchard places
Where the juicy apples grow,
And tomatoes in a row.
- Katherine Mansfield, Autumn Song
Especially when the October
wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.
- Dylan Thomas, Especially
When the October Wind
"In the time of autumn floods, a hundred streams poured into the river.
It swelled in its turbid course, so that it was impossible to tell a cow from a horse on the opposite
banks or on the islets. Then the Spirit of the River laughed for joy that all the beauty of the earth
was gathered to himself.
Down the stream he journeyed east, until he reached the North Sea. There,
looking eastwards and seeing no limit to its wide expanse, his countenance began to change. And as he
gazed over the ocean, he sighed and said to North-Sea Jo, "A vulgar proverb says that he
who has heard a great many truths thinks no one equal to himself. And such a one am I. Formerly when I
heard people detracting from the learning of Confucius or underrating the heroism of Po Yi, I
did not believe it.
But now that I have looked upon your inexhaustibility -- alas for me ! had I not
reached your abode, I should have been for ever a laughing stock to those of great
enlightenment!"
To this North-Sea Jo (the Spirit of the Ocean) replied, "You cannot
speak of ocean to a well-frog, which is limited by his abode. You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect, which
is limited by his short life. You cannot speak of Tao to a pedagogue, who is limited in his
knowledge. But now that you have emerged from your narrow sphere and have seen the great ocean, you know
your own insignificance, and I can speak to you of great principles."
- Chuang Tzu, Autumn
Floods, Chapter 17, Translated by Lin Yutang
In harvest time, harvest folk, servants and all
Should make, all together, good cheer in the hall
Once ended the harvest, let none be beguiled
Please such as did help thee, man, woman and child.
- Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry
October, the tenth month of the current Gregorian calendar and
the second month of Autumn’s rule, derives its name from octo, the Latin word
meaning “eight,” as October was the eighth month of the old Roman calendar.
The traditional birthstone amulets of October are opal, rose sapphire, and
tourmaline; and the calendula is the month’s traditional flower. October
is shared by the astrological signs of Libra the Scales (or Balance) and Scorpio
the Scorpion, and is sacred to the following Pagan deities: Cernunnos, Hecate,
the Morrigan, Osiris, and the Wiccan Goddess in Her dark aspect as the Crone. During the month of October, the Great Solar Wheel of the
Year is turned to Halloween (Samhain Eve), one of the four Grand Sabbats celebrated
each year by Wiccans and modern Witches throughout the world.
- Secrets of a Witch
Across the land a faint
blue veil of mist
Seems hung; the woods wear yet arrayment sober
Till frost shall make them flame; silent and whist
The drooping cherry orchards of October
Like mournful pennons hang their shriveling leaves
Russet and orange: all things now decay;
Long since ye garnered in your autumn sheaves,
And sad the robins pipe at set of day.
- Siegfried Sassons, October
On the first page of my dreambook
It's always evening
In an occupied country.
Hour before the curfew.
A small provincial city.
The houses all dark.
The store-fronts gutted.
I am on a street corner
Where I shouldn't be.
Alone and coatless
I have gone out to look
For a black dog who answers to my whistle.
I have a kind of halloween mask
Which I am afraid to put on. - Charles Simic, Empire of Dreams
In the great silence of my favorite month,
October (the red of maples, the bronze of oaks,
A clear-yellow leaf here and there on birches),
I celebrated the standstill of time.
The vast country of the dead had its beginning everywhere:
At the turn of a tree-lined alley, across park lawns.
But I did not have to enter, I was not called yet.
Motorboats pulled up on the river bank, paths in pine needles.
It was getting dark early, no lights on the other side.
I was going to attend the ball of ghosts and witches.
A delegation would appear there in masks and wigs,
And dance, unrecognized, in the chorus of the living.
- Czeslaw Milosz, All Hallow's Eve
Translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan
October is the tenthmonth of the year
in the Gregorian
Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days.
October begins (astrologically) with the sun in the sign of Libra
and ends in the sign of Scorpio.
Astronomically speaking, the sun begins in the constellation of Virgo
and ends in the constellation of Libra.
The name is from the Latin Word "octo"
for "eight".
October was the eighth month in the Roman
calendar until a monthless winter period (summer in the southern hemisphere) was divided between January
and February.
In the old
Japanese calendar the month is called Kan'na dzuki (神無月).
- Wikipedia
Crispy air and azure
skies,
High above, a white cloud flies,
Bright as newly fallen snow.
Oh the joy to those who know October!
Colors bright on bush and tree.
Over the weedy swamp, we see
A veil of purple and brown and gold.
Thy beauty words have never told. October!
Scolding sparrows on the lawn,
Rabbits frisking home at dawn,
Pheasants midst the sheaves of grain,
All in harmony acclaim, October!
Brown earth freshly turned by plow,
Apples shine on bended bough,
Bins o'erflowed with oats and wheat,
And satisfaction reigns complete. October!
Radiant joy is everywhere.
Spirits in tune to the spicy air,
Thrill in the glory of each day.
Life's worth living when we say, October!
- Joseph Pullman Porter
I want to tell you what hills are like in
October
when colors gush down mountainsides
and little streams are freighted with a caravan of leaves,
I want to tell you how they blush and turn in fiery shame
and joy,
how their love burns with flames consuming and terrible
until we wake one morning and woods are like a smoldering
plain --
a glowing caldron full of jewelled fire;
the emerald earth a dragon's eye
the poplars drenched with yellow light
and dogwoods blazing bloody red.
Travelling southward earth changes from gray rock to green
velvet.
- Margaret Walker, October Journey
Summer, goodbye.
The days grow shorter.
Cranes walk the fairway now
In careless order.
They step so gradually
Toward the distant green
They might be brushstrokes
Animating a screen.
Mist canopies
The water hazard.
Nearby, the little flag lifts,
Brave but frazzled.
Under sad clouds
Two white-capped golfers
Stand looking off, dreamy and strange,
Like young girls in Balthus.
- Donald Justice, October
As autumn returns to earth's northern hemisphere,
and day and night are briefly,
but perfectly,
balanced at the equinox,
may we remember anew how fragile life is ----
human life, surely,
but also the lives of all other creatures,
trees and plants,
waters and winds.
May we make wise choices in how and what we harvest,
may earth's weather turn kinder,
may there be enough food for all creatures,
may the diminishing light in our daytime skies
be met by an increasing compassion and tolerance
in our hearts.
- Kathleen Jenks,
Autumn Lore
"The word "Diwali" is the corruption of the Sanskrit word "Deepavali"
- Deepa meaning light
and Avali, meaning a row.
It means a row of lights and indeed illumination forms its main
attraction.
Every home - lowly or mightly - the hut of the
poor or the mansion of the rich -
is alit with the orange glow of twinkling diyas-small earthen lamps - to welcome Lakshmi,
Goddess of wealth and prosperity. Multi-coloured Rangoli designs, floral
decorations and
fireworks lend picturesness
and grandeur to this festival which heralds joy, mirth and
happiness in the
ensuring year. This festival is celebrated on a
grand scale in almost
all the regions of India and is looked upon mainly as the
beginning of New Year. As such
the
blessings of Lakshmi, the celestial consort of Lord Vishnu are invoked with
prayers.
Even countries like Gkyena,
Thailand, Trinidad, Siam and Malaya celebrate this festival
but in their own
ways. This Diwali festival, it is surmised
dates back to that period
when perhaps history was not written, and in its
progress through centuries it lighted
path of thousands to attain the ultimate good and complete ecstasy."
- Malini Bisen,
Diwali Festival, India
Crisis is
part of me.
Beneath my glass skin
Is a typhoon of savage passion. On October's
Desolate shore a fresh carcass is cast up;
October is
my empire.
My gentle hands control what is lost.
My tiny eyes survey what is melting.
My tender ears listen to the silence of the dying.
Terror is
part of me.
In my rich bloodstream
Courses all-killing time. In October's
Chilling sky a fresh famine erupts.
October is
my empire.
My dead troops hold every rain-sodden city.
My dead warning-plane circles the sky above aimless minds.
My dead sign their names for the dying.
- Tamura Ryuichi
AY, thou art welcome, heaven's delicious breath! When woods
begin to wear the crimson leaf,
And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief
And the year smiles as it draws near its death. Wind of the sunny south! oh,
still delay
In the gay woods and in the golden air,
Like to a good old age released from care,
Journeying, in long serenity, away.
In such a bright, late quiet, would that I
Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks
And dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,
And music of kind voices ever nigh;
And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,
Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.
- William Cullen Bryant, October
October is marigold, and
yet
A glass half full of wine left out
To the dark heaven all night, by dawn
Has dreamed a premonition
Of ice across its eye as if
The ice-age had begun its heave.
The lawn overtrodden and strewn
From the night before, and the whistling green
Shrubbery are doomed. Ice
Has got its spearhead into place.
First a skin, delicately here
Restraining a ripple from the air;
Soon plate and rivet on pond and brook;
Then tons of chain and massive lock
To hold rivers. Then, sound by sight
Will Mammoth and Sabre-tooth celebrate
Reunion while a fist of cold
Squeezes the fire at the core of the world,
Squeezes the fire at the core of the heart,
And now it is about to start.
- Ted Hughes, October Dawn
In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail.
Pleasant summer over
An all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The gray smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all,
Flowers in the summer
Fires in the fall!
- Robert Louis Stevenson, "Autumn Fires"
Autumn
Greetings, Customs and Lore Mythology Myth*ing Links:
Autumn Equinox
A 60K list of carefully selected and informatively
annotated links about mythology.
Removing dead and non-productive vegetable
crops.
Ordering seed and garden catalogs.
Remove all peppers in case of frost.
Reduce watering as temperature drops.
Watering plants as needed.
Being attentive to the effects of the cold dry winds.
Planting potted trees and shrubs in the ground.
Placing cold sensitive potted plants in protected areas or indoors.
Planting bulbs.
Prune and mulch perennials.
Storing and repairing tools.
Fertilize with 20-9-9 or 15-15-15.
Trees without leaves need little or no watering.
Picking pumpkins, squash, colored corn, and other crops for Thanksgiving
decorations.
Finish all digging and construction projects before the first rain.
Bring in wood and kindling to rain free storage areas.
Repair roofs on sheds and house.
Add fallen leaves to the compost pile.
Be prepared for chilling frosts.
Collect seeds from plants.
Start pruning berry vines.
"Since we do experience droughts nearly every summer, it is
crucial to provide supplemental
irrigation to newly installed (spring) landscapes. Generally this means a couple
of hours of
watering once or twice a week. Keep in mind that trees and shrubs planted in the
spring
and summer use a significant amount of their resources for above-ground growth.
Since
root growth is favored during the dormant season, it’s best to install
landscape plants
in the fall. It has been demonstrated that shrubs and trees planted during the
fall
suffer less environmental stress than those planted in the spring or
summer."
- Dr.
Linda Chalker-Scott
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips, Clichés,
Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,700 Quotes, Arranged by 130 Topics
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Over 6 MB of Text.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Distributed on the Internet by
Michael P. Garofalo
