Luck.

Jethro Tull-ish, "Weathercock"

Do you simply reflect changes in the patterns of the sky?

Or is it true to say the weather heeds, the twinkle in your eye?

Smoky-Smelling.

But you take October, now. School's been on a month and you're riding easier in the reins, jogging along.You got time to think of the garbage you'll dump on old man Prickett's porch, or the hairy-ape costume you'll wear to the YMCA the last night of the month.  And if it's around October twentieth and everything smoky-smelling and the sky orange and ash grey at twilight, it seems Hallowe'en will never come in a fall of broomsticks and a soft flap of bedsheets around corners.

Ray Bradbury, from Something Wicked This Way Comes

Poet-Calling.

OCTOBER’S PORCH

October sun —

      soul-stirring

October air —

      wood-burning

October quiet —

      ease-giving

October birds —

      poet-calling

October trees —

      edge-trembling

October light —

      serene-slanting

October colors —

      eye-calming

October leaves —

      art-sparking

Terri Guillemets

Rolling.

Arcimboldo, Autumn, 1573

“It’s fine,” said October. His beard was all colors, a grove of trees in autumn, deep brown and fire-orange and wine-red, an untrimmed tangle across the lower half of his face. His cheeks were apple-red. He looked like a friend; like someone you had known all your life. “September can go first. Let’s just get it rolling.”

Neil Gaiman, from “October in the Chair”

Spattered.

Kelley, The Schoolhouse, Being Deserted, Soon Fell to Decay, and Was Reported to be Haunted by the Ghost of the Unfortunate Pedagogue, 1991

The next morning the old horse was found, without his saddle and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master’s gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast; dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the school-house and strolled idly about the banks of the brook but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses’ hoofs, deeply dented in the road and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a spattered pumpkin.

Washington Irving, from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

More.

And they ran and each came back carrying a lit pumpkin and lined them up on Pipkin’s porch rail where they smiled outrageous smiles to wait for Pipkin to come home.

And they stood on the lawn and looked at the lovely sight of all those smiles, their costumes tattered upon their arms and shoulders and legs, and the greasepaint dripped and running on their faces, and a great wondrous happy tiredness gathering in their eyelids and arms and feet, but not wanting to go yet.

And the town clock struck midnight—GUNNNG!

And gunnng again, to a full count of twelve.

And Halloween was over.

And all about the town, doors were slamming and lights going out.

The boys began to drift saying Night and Night and again Night and some Good Night but most Night, yes, Night. And the lawn was empty, but Pipkin’s porch was just full of candle illumination and warmth and baked pumpkin smell.

And Ghost and Mummy and Skeleton and Witch and all the rest were back at their own homes, on their own porches, and each turned to look at the town and remember this special night they would never in all their lives ever forget and they looked across the town at one another’s porches but especially on and over across the ravine to that great House where at the very top Mr. Moundshroud stood on his spike-railinged roof.

The boys waved, each from his own porch.

The smoke curling out of the high Moundshroud gothic chimney fluttered, motioned, waved back.

And still more doors were slamming to lock all around town.

And with each slam, one more pumpkin and then another and another and another on the huge Halloween Tree snuffed out. By the dozens, by the hundreds, by the thousands, doors banged, pumpkins went blind, snuffed candles smoked delicious smokes.

The Witch hesitated, went in, shut the door.

A Witch-faced pumpkin on the Tree went dark.

The Mummy stepped into his house and shut his door.

A pumpkin with the face of a mummy extinguished its light.

And finally, the last boy in all the town remaining alone on his veranda, Tom Skelton in his skull and bones hating to go in, wanting to wring the last dear drop from his favorite holiday in all the year, sent his thoughts on the night air toward the strange house beyond the ravine: Mr. Moundshroud, who are YOU?

And Mr. Moundshroud, way up there on the roof, sent his thoughts back: I think you know, boy, I think you know.

Will we meet again, Mr. Moundshroud?

Many years from now, yes, I’ll come for you.

And a last thought from Tom: O Mr. Moundshroud, will we EVER stop being afraid of nights and death?

And the thought returned: When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die.

Tom listened, heard, and waved quietly.

Mr. Moundshroud, far off, lifted his hand.

Click. Tom’s front door went shut.

His pumpkin-like-a-skull, on the vast Tree, sneezed and went dark.

The wind stirred the great Halloween Tree which was now empty of all light save one pumpkin at the very top.

A pumpkin with Mr. Moundshroud’s eyes and face.

At the top of the house, Mr. Moundshroud leaned out, took a breath, blew.  His candle in his pumpkin head on the Tree fluttered, died.

Miraculously, smoke curled out of his own mouth, his nose, his ears, his eyes, as if his soul had been extinguished within his lungs at the very moment the sweet pumpkin gave up its incensed ghost.

He sank down into his house. The roof trapdoor closed.

The wind came by. It rocked all the dark smoking pumpkins on the vast and beautiful Halloween Tree. The wind seized a thousand dark leaves and blew them away up over the sky and down over the earth toward the sun that must surely rise.

Like the town, the Tree turned off its embered smiles and slept.

At two in the morning, the wind came back for more leaves.

Ray Bradbury, from The Halloween Tree

Now.

'Tis Autumn.  The weekend begins now ...

"Hang care!" exclaimed he. "This is a delicious evening; the wine has a finer relish here than in the house, and the song is more exciting and melodious under the tranquil sky than in the close room, where the sound is stifled. Come, let us have a bacchanalian chant—let us, with old Sir Toby, make the welkin dance and rouse the night-owl with a catch! I am right merry. Pass the bottle, and tune your voices—a catch, a catch! The lights will be here anon." 

Charles Ollier, from "The Haunted Manor-House of Paddington" 

For best results, listen to these ...

The euphony transformed me and inundated my soul in a roguish countenance, the likes of which I had know well in younger days. Such impishness soon drove out the complaints of the day. 

Umberto Limongiello

October.

What a grand and glorious October ...

Leap.

AUGUST 15

I await the end of August and the murder of September.

I am here, tardy Autumn, waiting for you. I’ve prepared you a wheat porridge and lit a fire. Come with your wind and sweep away the shameless sun. Lift its hand from my shoulders.

Summer lies heavily on my chest. But my white hand swears by Autumn, and readies the saddle for its wretched horses. Autumn considers my idea then implements it: rows of stones ringing the hillside, and scattered clouds climbing the slope of the sky. Nothing more than this, nothing more.

Of course, you could add a burst of lightning to shatter my bones and the bones of the world.

You were all mistaken. You thought that horses live on the hills of Spring.

Autumn’s hills are the horses’ residence. The scent of rain excites them, their nostrils flare, then they leap over stone walls toward the summit, to graze on the edges of clouds.

Zakaria Mohammed

Thank you, Courtney.

Music.

Wyeth (Jamie), Blueberry Mulch, 1980

TO AUTUMN

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

   Steady thy laden head across a brook;

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats

Horror-Struck.

Kelley, Just Then He Saw the Goblin Rising in His Stirrups, and in the Very Act of Hurling his Head at Him, 1991

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents, “Who are you?” He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness.

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind; the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless! but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the saddle. His terror rose to desperation, he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his companion the slip; but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, they dashed through thick and thin, stones flying and sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod’s flimsy garments fluttered in the air as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse’s head in the eagerness of his flight.

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn and plunged headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story, and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskillful rider an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got halfway through the hollow the girths of the saddle gave away and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain, and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper’s wrath passed across his mind, for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches, and (unskilled rider that he was) he had much ado to maintain his seat, sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse’s back-bone with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder.

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones’ ghostly competitor had disappeared. “If I can but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash; he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider passed by like a whirlwind.

Washington Irving, from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

Snatch.

Wyeth, Bonfire, 1993

Keep your eyes open

And prick up your ears

Rehearse your loudest cry.

There's folk out there

Who would do you harm

So I'll sing you no lullaby.

There's a lock on the window;

There's a chain on the door:

A big dog in the hall.

But there's dragons and beasties

Out there in the night

To snatch you if you fall.

Jethro Tull, from "No Lullabye," off Heavy Horses

Tied.

Wyeth, Pumpkin Hill, 1977

There’s witchcraft and hidden meaning there. Halloween and all that is strangely tied into it. For me, the paintings have that eerie feeling of goblins and witches out riding on broomsticks — damp rotting leaves and moisture — smell of make-up — as a child, the smell inside of a pumpkin when a candle is lit — the feel of your face under a mask walking down a road in the moonlight. I love all that, because then I don’t exist anymore.

Andrew Wyeth

Dream.

Homer, The Pumpkin Patch, 1878

"Jack-o'-Lantern, Jack-o'-Lantern,

Tell me where you hide by day?"

"In the cradle where the vapours

Dream the sunlit hours away."

"Jack-o'-Lantern, Jack-o'-Lantern,

Who rekindles you at night?"

"Any firefly in the meadow

Lends a Jack-o'-Lantern light."

John B. Tabb

Believe.

Silver-White.

Jacobs, Jack Frost, n/d

JACK FROST

The door was shut, as doors should be,

 Before you went to bed last night;

Yet Jack Frost has got in, you see,

 And left your window silver-white.

He must have waited till you slept;

 And not a single word he spoke,

But pencilled o’er the panes and crept

 Away again before you woke.

And now you cannot see the hills

 Nor fields that stretch beyond the lane;

But there are fairer things than these

 His fingers traced on every pane.

Rocks and castles towering high;

 Hills and dales, and streams and fields;

And knights in armor riding by,

 With nodding plumes and shining shields.

And here are little boats, and there

 Big ships with sails spread to the breeze;

And yonder, palm trees waving fair

 On islands set in silver seas,

And butterflies with gauzy wings;

 And herds of cows and flocks of sheep;

And fruit and flowers and all the things

 You see when you are sound asleep.

For, creeping softly underneath

 The door when all the lights are out,

Jack Frost takes every breath you breathe,

 And knows the things you think about.

He paints them on the window-pane

 In fairy lines with frozen steam;

And when you wake you see again

 The lovely things you saw in dream.

Gabriel Setoun

Deep-Seeing.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

I seem like one

Who treads alone

   Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,

   And all but me departed.

           —Thomas Moore, “Oft in the Stilly Night (Scotch Air)”

See’st thou yon gray gleaming hall,

Where the deep elm-shadows fall?

Voices that have left the earth

     Long ago,

Still are murmuring round its hearth,

     Soft and low:

Ever there;—yet one alone

Hath the gift to hear their tone.

Guests come thither, and depart,

Free of step, and light of heart;

Children, with sweet visions blessed,

In the haunted chambers rest;

One alone unslumbering lies

When the night hath sealed all eyes,

One quick heart and watchful ear,

Listening for those whispers clear.

 

See’st thou where the woodbine-flowers

O’er yon low porch hang in showers?

Startling faces of the dead,

     Pale, yet sweet,

One lone woman’s entering tread

     There still meet!

Some with young, smooth foreheads fair,

Faintly shining through bright hair;

Some with reverend locks of snow—

All, all buried long ago!

All, from under deep sea-waves,

Or the flowers of foreign graves,

Or the old and bannered aisle,

Where their high tombs gleam the while;

Rising, wandering, floating by,

Suddenly and silently,

Through their earthly home and place,

But amidst another race.

 

Wherefore, unto one alone,

Are those sounds and visions known?

Wherefore hath that spell of power

     Dark and dread,

On her soul, a baleful dower,

     Thus been shed?

Oh! in those deep-seeing eyes,

No strange gift of mystery lies!

She is lone where once she moved,

Fair, and happy, and beloved!

Sunny smiles were glancing round her,

Tendrils of kind hearts had bound her;

Now those silver chords are broken,

Those bright looks have left no token;

Not one trace on all the earth,

Save her memory of their mirth.

She is lone and lingering now,

Dreams have gathered o’er her brow,

Midst gay songs and children’s play,

She is dwelling far away;

Seeing what none else may see—

Haunted still her place must be!

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Thank you, Walter.