It’s October- that means it’s time to get cozy! Here are 5 vivid poems that bring the all cozy vibes.
- Autumn by Grace Paley
-
What is sometimes called a
tongue of flame
or an arm extended burning
is only the long
red and orange branch of
a green maple
in early September
reaching into the greenest field
out of the green woods
at the edge of which the birch trees
appear a little tattered
tired of sustaining delicacy
all through the hot summer
reminding everyone (in our family)
of a Russian song
a story by Chekhov
or my father
2
What is sometimes called a
tongue of flame
or an arm extended
burning is only the long
red and orange branch of
a green maple in early September
reaching into the greenest field
out of the green woods
at the edge of which the birch trees
appear a little tattered
tired of sustaining delicacy
all through the hot summer
reminding everyone (in our family)
of a Russian song
a story by Chekhov
or my father on his own lawn
standing beside his own wood in
the United States of America
saying (in Russian)
this birch is a lovely tree
but among the others
somehow superficial
- First Fall by Maggie Smith
-
I’m your guide here. In the evening-dark
morning streets, I point and name.
Look, the sycamores, their mottled,
paint-by-number bark. Look, the leaves
rusting and crisping at the edges.
I walk through Schiller Park with you
on my chest. Stars smolder well
into daylight. Look, the pond, the ducks,
the dogs paddling after their prized sticks.
Fall is when the only things you know
because I’ve named them
begin to end. Soon I’ll have another
season to offer you: frost soft
on the window and a porthole
sighed there, ice sleeving the bare
gray branches. The first time you see
something die, you won’t know it might
come back. I’m desperate for you
to love the world because I brought you here.
- Leaves Fell by Juhan Liiv
-
A gust roused the waves,
leaves blew into the water,
the waves were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.
It was good for my heart:
there my feelings were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.
The breath of wind brought cooler air,
the waves of mourning brought separation:
autumn and autumn
befriend each other.
- Autumn by John Clare
-
I love the fitfull gusts that shakes
The casement all the day
And from the mossy elm tree takes
The faded leaf away
Twirling it by the window-pane
With thousand others down the laneI love to see the shaking twig
Dance till the shut of eve
The sparrow on the cottage rig
Whose chirp would make believe
That spring was just now flirting by
In summers lap with flowers to lieI love to see the cottage smoke
Curl upwards through the naked trees
The pigeons nestled round the coatOn dull November days like these
The cock upon the dung-hill crowing
The mill sails on the heath a-goingThe feather from the ravens breast
Falls on the stubble lea
The acorns near the old crows nest
Fall pattering down the tree
The grunting pigs that wait for all
Scramble and hurry where they fall - Pleasant Sounds by John Clare
-
The rustling of leaves under the feet in woods and under hedges;
The crumpling of cat-ice and snow down wood-rides, narrow lanes, and every street causeway;
Rustling through a wood or rather rushing, while the wind halloos in the oak-toop like thunder;
The rustle of birds’ wings startled from their nests or flying unseen into the bushes;
The whizzing of larger birds overhead in a wood, such as crows, puddocks, buzzards;
The trample of robins and woodlarks on the brown leaves, and the patter of squirrels on the green moss;
The fall of an acorn on the ground, the pattering of nuts on the hazel branches as they fall from ripeness;
The flirt of the groundlark’s wing from the stubbles- how sweet such pictures on dewy mornings, when the dew flashes from its brown feathers.
I hope you enjoy these as much as I do!
HCXO, Taylor