Autumn poems

We're having the stretch of sunny weather that usually comes in September, when it mostly rained in Seattle. A high-pressure ridge off the coast holds the clouds and gloom way out in the Pacific for a few days. You can see it on the weather map and you can feel it in the dry, crisp air. The sunsets are golden and the moon is out.

Of course, being October, it's chilly and the days are short. But still, fine weather to do just about anything outside. And to miss riding your dear, old horse-- even if it was just to the end of the block to look down together at the freeway and Boeing Field.

The majority of people say that fall is their favorite season, but most of the poetry written about autumn is sad or reflective. Well, maybe it makes us happy to be sad now and then. I thought of this while clearing out messy flowerbeds and cutting off the last of the flopping dahlias and asters.

Here's a poem called The Garden, by Sara Teasdale:

My heart is tired with autumn,
Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark...

In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,
The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark-
Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,
And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain-
The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten-
After the stillness, will spring come again?