September Apples

An Autumn Tradition:
Alastair & Tina's Backyard Apple Tree

A Man's Work

An apple-tree, a cedar and an oak
Grow by the stone house in the rocky field
Where I write poems when my hand's in luck.
The cedar I put in: the rest are wild --

Wind dropped them. Apples strew the autumn ground
With black, sweet - smelling pips. The oak strews air,
Summers with shadow, winters with harsh sound.
The cedar's silent with its fruit to bear.

Winter Is Another Country

If the autumn would
End! If the sweet season,
The late light in the tall trees would
End! If the fragrance, the odor of
Fallen apples, dust on the road,
Water somewhere near, the scent of
Water touching me; if this would end
I could endure the absence in the night,
The hands beyond the reach of hands, the name
Called out and never answered with my name:
The image never seen with sight.
I could endure this all
If autumn ended and the cold light came.

both poems
by Archibald MacLeish (1892 – 1982)
in Collected Poems 1917-1982

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Auntie Margaret's Amazing
Blenheim Orange Apple Tree

"Apples strew the autumn ground . . . "

The Human Season

The slow and steady progress
of the seasons never ceases to amaze!

In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire
With good old folks and let them tell thee tales
Of woeful ages long ago betid;

Richard II, Act V, scene i

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Speaking of old folks and old fires . . .

Immortal Autumn

I speak this poem now with grave and level voice
In praise of autumn, of the far-horn-winding fall.

I praise the flower-barren fields, the clouds, the tall
Unanswering branches where the wind makes sullen noise.

I praise the fall: it is the human season.
Now
No more the foreign sun does meddle at our earth,
Enforce the green and bring the fallow land to birth,
Nor winter yet weigh all with silence the pine bough,

But now in autumn with the black and outcast crows
Share we the spacious world: the whispering year is gone:
There is more room to live now: the once secret dawn
Comes late by daylight and the dark unguarded goes.

Between the mutinous brave burning of the leaves
And winter’s covering of our hearts with his deep snow
We are alone: there are no evening birds: we know
The naked moon: the tame stars circle at our eaves.

It is the human season. On this sterile air
Do words outcarry breath: the sound goes on and on.
I hear a dead man’s cry from autumn long since gone.

I cry to you beyond upon this bitter air.

by Archibald MacLeish (1892 – 1982)
in Collected Poems 1917-1982

"September sign off . . . "

Both photos by Missouri Photographer Jay Beets
whose photographs have beautified my blog
many times over the past decade. Thanks!

He Said She Said

Odysseus & Calypso

He Said:

I know very well, goddess, she is not beautiful
As you are: could not be. She is a woman,
Mortal, subject to the chances . . .

You are immortal and will never change
And can make me immortal also . . .

Nevertheless I long . . . for the island
Where the grass dies and the seasons alter:

Where that one wears the sunlight for a while.

~ from Calypso's Island *
~ by Archibald MacLeish

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She Said:

Let's face it, I have been momentary.
A luxury. . . .

She is more than that. She is your have to have . . .

I give you back your heart.
I give you permission . . .

As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.

~ from For My Lover, Returning To His Wife *
~ by Anne Sexton

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To read the above poems in their entirety

see my latest post:

He Said She Said

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

* and click titles above
to hear the poets read their own work

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