October Country

By Catt Kingsgrave

I think that I could live all my life

In any country but October.

Spring, of course, who wouldn’t live forever

There? The first-robin days scented

With flowers on peach twigs, rose on grey.

Yes, I could live forever there. Summer,

Yes. Gold washed air

Heavy and sleepily clover smelling,

Dark green, adolescent leaves,

And the nod of summer flowers droning with the bees. Yes, there too.

Even dead winter, with the air

So heavy with cold, nostrils sneeze,

Where muted earth colours around the snow

Clouds of spoken thought hang in mid-air

‘til after the speaker has forgotten them

even there.

But October, no. Not when the rain converts

Autumn’s fallen glory to sloppy

Sponges that cling to your shoes like leeches.

The trees feel barest in October when the wind

Cries louder than ever, and the lost scraps,

Discarded papers scuttle forlornly before it.
Anywhere, but not October.