My November Guest by Robert Frost

Today is the last day of my Thirty Day Challenge of blogging everyday. I am happy to say that this month has been a success. Even though I was tempted to skip sometimes, I never missed a day. As a result, the daily traffic on my blog has more than doubled and I’ve been able to share my writing with so many other people. I totally recommend doing this to bloggers who love to write but typically hesitate before posting because they are a giant over-analyzing perfectionists.

To end this month I will post another one of my Robert Frost favorites that relates to next month, November.

A picture I took a few days ago.

My November Guest by Robert Frost

My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walked the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

If you like Robert Frost, check out some more of his poems that I’ve posted like October and Nothing Gold Can Stay.

The Thought Of Something Else– Wendell Berry

“…that old dream of going, of becoming a better man just by getting up and going to a better place.”

A picture I took today.

Here is one of my favorite poems.
The Thought of Something Else by Wendell Berry.

1.

A spring wind blowing
the smell of the ground
through the intersections of traffic,
the mind turns, seeks a new
nativity—another place,
simpler, less weighted
by what has already been.

Another place!
it’s enough to grieve me—
that old dream of going,
of becoming a better man
just by getting up and going
to a better place.

2.

The mystery. The old
unaccountable unfolding.
The iron trees in the park
suddenly remember forests.
It becomes possible to think of going

3.

—a place where thought
can take its shape
as quietly in the mind
as water in a pitcher,
or a man can be
safely without thought
—see the day begin
and lean back,
a simple wakefulness filling
perfectly
the spaces among the leaves.

All Too Soon

“Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty if only we have the eyes to see them.”
–John Ruskin

Today was such a beautiful autumn day. It makes me glad I live in New England.

The dead leaves sweep
through the winding roads
always moving with the wind

The bare trees stretch
out to the distant sky
reaching and reaching

The dim sun fades
into purple dusk
all too soon

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nothing Gold Can Stay
By Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Autumn in New England

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
— Albert Camus

It’s autumn in New England! Here’s a picture I took today on my run as well as a quote I really like.

This is such a quick post because I was ABOUT to fall asleep and then I remembered my 30 Day Challenge. Well, I didn’t post much but it’s something!

e.e. cummings

Today while in Boston I stumbled upon a very cute bookstore where I happened to find this e.e. cummings poem that really resonated with me. Hope you like it!

who are you, little i

(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window; at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day
has to become night

this is a beautiful way)

— e.e. cummings

Here Today, Tomorrow Gone

I took this picture outside of my school last week.

Here is a poem I wrote today that I’ve been meaning to get down for weeks.

The flicker of two eyes and
a heart knocking out of the chest
one more ephemeral promise

like the leaves
here today, tomorrow gone

flowing in elusive wisps
always suspended between high hope
and low fall

the anticlimax of two paths nearly gracing
–but not
a slow fall into yet another
almost

Fall-Inspired Poems by Frost: October

“My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.”
Robert Frost, November Guest

My old copy of Robert Frost poems.

While on my run today I couldn’t help but notice the soft crunch of leaves under my feet the the crisp fall breeze moving through the air. When I got home this inspired me to pick up my worn copy of Robert Frost poems and skim to some of my fall favorites. Here’s one that is perfect for this month:

October
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.

The Last Night of September

The last night of September
closes with sweet reveries
of star cluttered skies
and the soft feeling of fullness
resting in the pit of the stomach,
Those promising syllables of Someday

Today I’ve made my second post for my 30 Day Challenge of blogging everyday! If you haven’t heard about the challenge, read more HERE.

Autumn

I can see the first
tip of autumn
seeping through the veins
of a leaf
one far off in the distance
at the base of a misty mountain
one much too far away to touch
from behind concrete walls and
screened in, airtight windows
but I see it, the tree, a maple tree,
in all its autumnal glory
withering away
the slow death of the cold months
a graceful fall
more beautiful than its life