October Journey by Margaret Walker


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

to velvet. -

This affinity I have with the Fall has been a life long affair, and if it were not so I would suspect it of springing from the chronology of my life, and where I am in that respect. I am hoping that is where my life is, - part of the mellow months of September and October. It is possible I may have slipped over into melancholy November, but I think not yet.....

Today Husband and I journeyed to Penticton, and as we sped over the pass I took moving pictures from the window of the car.


















On our way home the slight breeze had died and the waters of Yellow Lake mirrored the jewel like foliage that lined the shore.


We stopped at the side of the lake and marveled at the clarity of the reflections in the water.



















Here is a little love song to October, and to those we hold dear as we leave the summer of our life behind.

Now Blue October


Now blue October, smoky in the sun,
Must end the long, sweet summer of the heart.
The last brief visit of the birds is done;
They sing the autumn songs before they part.
Listen, how lovely--there's the thrush we heard
When June was small with roses, and the bending
Blossom of branches covered nest and bird,
Singing the summer in, summer unending--
Give me your hand once more before the night;
See how the meadows darken with the frost,
How fades the green that was the summer's light.
Beauty is only altered, never lost
And love, before the cold November rain,
Will make its summer in the heart again.
ROBERT NATHAN