Autumn Poems

Today, September 22,  2016 is the first day of Autumn, or the Autumnal Equinox, or if you prefer, the Fall Equinox.  In recognition of this, here are a few poems about autumn. 



No. 12

The morns are meeker than they were --
The nuts are getting brown --
The berry's cheek is plumper --
The Rose is out of town.

The Maple wears a gayer scarf --
The field a scarlet gown --
Lest I should be old fashioned
I'll put a trinket on.

-- Emily Dickinson --
from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson




With the moon-rising .. .
   Leaf after leaf after leaf
        Falls fluttering down
                     -- Shiki --
from Cherry-Blossoms: Japanese Haiku Series III
tran. not given





     The mountain grows darker,
Taking the scarlet
    From the autumn leaves.
                     -- Buson --
from Silent Flowers
trans R. H. Blyth



Clear autumn sky
   One pine tree
Soaring on the ridge.
               -- Soseki --
from Zen Haiku
Trans and edited by Soiku Shigematsu




Song at the Beginning of Autumn

Now watch this autumn that arrives
In smells.  All looks like summer still;
Colours are quite unchanged, the air
On green and white serenely thrives.
Heavy the trees with growth and full
The fields.  Flowers flourish everywhere.

Proust who collected time within
A child's cake would understand
The ambiguity of this--
Summer still raging while a thin
column of smoke stirs from the land
Proving that autumn gropes for us.

But every season is a kind
Of rich nostalgia.  We give names--
Autumn and summer, winter, spring--
As though to unfasten from the mind
Our moods and give them outward forms.
We want the certain, solid thing

But I am carried back against
My will into a childhood where
Autumn is bonfires, marbles. smoke;
I lean against my window fenced
From evocations in the air.
When I said autumn, autumn broke. 

-- Elizabeth Jennings --
from Collected Poems
  

 When I think of autumn, I do not think of autumn in Tucson, where I've lived for over 45 years.  Instead, I think of autumn in Chicago, where I grew up.

Fall Equinox: Autumnal Haiku

A bright autumn moon .  .  .
In the shadow of each grass
      An insect chirping
    -- Buson --


                                The calling bell
                    Travels the curling mist-ways .  .  .
                                Autumn morning
                                    -- Basho --


                                               Supper in autumn .  .  .
                                     The light through an open door
                                                 From a setting sun
                                                            -- Chora --

                                                   
                                Jagged candle-flame .  .  .
                            The very shape of autumn sifts             
                                  Through the shutters 
                                         --  Raizan --


Nights are getting cold .  .  .
   Not a single insect now
        Attacks the candle
                  -- Shiki --

                                
                                Swallows flying south .  .  .
                           My house too of sticks and paper
                                   Only a stopping place
                                             -- Kyorai --

                                                
                                                           All the world is cold   .  .  .
                                                        My fishing-line is trembling
                                                              in the autumn wind
                                                                       --  Buson --



                             White autumn moon .  .  .
                           Black-branch shadow-patterns
                                      Printed on the mats
                                                 -- Kikaku --


     First white snow of fall
Just enough to bend the leaves
      Of faded daffodils
                    -- Basho --


All haiku come from
A Little Treasury of Haiku
Edited and translated by Peter Beilenson

Emily Dickinson: The End of Summer

#1536

There comes a warning like a spy
A shorter breath of Day
A stealing that is not a stealth
And Summers are away --


But a spy is not supposed to be noticed!  The change from Summer to Autumn, at first I guess, isn't that noticeable--just a shortening of the Day and a slight loss of  ?   Perhaps the warning is the shorter breath and the stealing?  The Summer is dying. 



#1540

As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away --
Too imperceptible at last
To seem like Perfidy --
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternon --
Th Dusk drew earlier in --
The Morning foreign shone --
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest, that wold be gone --
And thus, witout a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful 

Again, the sense that Summer doesn't just abruptly leave, but quietly steals away.
"Our Summer made her light escape"   Just small changes maybe, but into the Beautiful?
This is ambiguous.


#1572

We wear our sober Dresses when we die,
But Summer, frilled as for a Holiday
Adjourns her sigh --

The contrast between us and Summer during our last days.  Perhaps this explains the last line of the previous poem "Into the Beautiful."

--  Emily Dickinson --
from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Thomas H. Johnson, Editor




And as always, I can't help but think of similar haiku, suggesting that poets (and therefore humans) from around the globe aren't that different.

                  A single cricket
Chirps, chirps, chirps, and is still .  .  . my
           Candle sinks and dies
                                 -- Anon --

Nothing remarkable here--just a cricket going silent and a candle fading away


          So enviable .  .  .
Maple-leaves most glorious
    Contemplating death
                        -- Shiki --


     Should it have such worth,
What would I not give
    For the scenery of autumn?
                   -- Soin --


The last two haiku, seem related to the second and third poems by Dickinson..

Weather Report

Tucson, Arizona


3:26 MST

Temperature: 108 F

Humidity: 14%

Heat Index: 105 F


Vendor of bright fans
Carrying his pack of breeze . . .
Suffocating heat!
-- Shiki --


It may be a dry heat, but it's still hot.

The Summer Solstice

Today is the Summer Solstice



Shortest summer night. . .

In early morning, lamps still

Burning on the bay

- Shiki -