Ways to celebrate October:
- get out for an early morning walk/run,
- have one last ice cream, or perhaps french fries from a Chip Truck, on a warm Fall day,
- get a haircut, to lessen that cool-weather, fly-away electricity,
- gather around a bonfire,
- winterize the trailer,
- share a poem!
I’ve managed to do that first one on the list already, and the last thing here follows. ;) Though it seems more like prose, than poetry.
Every October it becomes important, no, necessary
to see the leaves turning, to be surrounded
by leaves turning; ... nature is most seductive
when it’s about to die, flaunting the dazzle of its
incipient exit, an ending that at least so far
the effects of human progress (pollution, acid rain)
have not yet frightened you enough to make you believe
is real; that is, you know this ending is a deception
because of course nature is always renewing itself—
the trees don’t die, they just pretend,
go out in style, and return in style: a new style.
from "Leaves", by Lloyd Schwartz, 1941
