October

 
 
 

October

By Robert Frost

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.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost —
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

Walking the River

"[S]imply walking along a river can be an adventure, a solace, an exercise, a joy."
"The breadth of one's awareness expands and attends to the important things in life one often passes by — how the cottonwood leans, how the trout lurks, how the butterfly wafts and drifts, how the water currents swirl and eddy, how a leaf floats stem up, how tufted seeds float to new shores to begin a new willow. The river is the ultimate agent of change and flow, of life itself as change and flow."

Quotations from It Flows Along Forever by Ann Zwinger, published in Orion Magazine, Summer 1996.