october's end

there it was.

gone!

september's arrival was something

of a surprise.

october's departure

was

not so much surprising

as precipitous!

i've been spending time inside the writing of madison cawein.

so of course

his work shows up here a little more often.

so slow down,

spend some time with me

and let's dive

inside

his words.

i especially love

this piece of his writing

entitled "october".

october

i oft have met her slowly wandering

beside a leafy stream, her locks blown wild,

her cheeks a hectic flush, more fair than spring,

as if on her the sumac copse had smiled.

(feeding the ducks charles edward wilson)

or i have seen her sitting, tall and brown,--

her gentle eyes with foolish weeping dim,--

beneath a twisted oak from whose red leaves

she wound great drowsy wreaths and cast them down;

the west-wind in her hair, that made it swim

far out behind, deep as the rustling sheaves.

or in the hill-lands i have often seen

the marvel of her passage; glimpses faint

of glimmering woods that glanced the hills between,

charles sims ("and the fairies ran away with their clothes")

or i have met her 'twixt two beechen hills,

("a spring morning, loch katrine, the vale of monteith")

within a dingled valley near a fall,

held in her nut-brown hand one cardinal flower;

or wading dimly where the leaf-dammed rills

went babbling through the wildwood's arrased hall,

where burned the beech and maples glared their power.

david bates ("resting beside a river")

or i have met her by some ruined mill,

ernest walbourne ("the old mill")

where trailed the crimson creeper, serpentine,

on fallen leaves that stirred and rustled chill,

where splashed the murmur of the forest's fountains;

with all her loveliness did she beseech,

and all the sorrow of her wildwood charms.

hermann ottomar herzog ("girl with geese")

once only in a hollow, girt with trees,

a-dream amid wild asters filled with rain,

i glimpsed her cheeks red-berried by the breeze,

in her dark eyes the night's sidereal stain.

and once upon an orchard's tangled path,

where all the golden-rod had turned to brown,

where russets rolled and leaves were sweet of breath,

i have beheld her 'mid her aftermath

of blossoms standing, in her gypsy gown,

within her gaze the deeps of life and death.

madison cawein