I’ve been waiting for this..bright blue skies with puffy white clouds, a cool nip in the air, some wind to blow the falling leaves around…now that’s October and it gives me an excuse to share one of my favorite poems.
This was required reading for an English class I took in school. I think it was 5th grade English but I could be wrong. No matter when I was introduced to this poem, it’s stayed with me all of these years.
October’s Bright Blue Weather…by Helen Hunt Jackson
O suns and skies and clouds of June
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather.
*
When loud the bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And Goldenrod is dying fast
And lanes with grapes are fragrant.
*
Went gentians roll their fingers tight
To save them for the morning.
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning.
*
When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining.
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining.
When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing.
*
When springs run low, and on the brooks
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting.
*
When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together.
And count like misers , hour by hour,
October’s bright blue weather.
O sun and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together.
Love loveth best of all the year
October’s bright blue weather.