THE LOVE FOR OCTOBER
A child looking at ruins grows younger
but cold
and wants to wake to a new name
I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows
and the wren laughs in the early shade now
come again shining glance in your good time
naked air late morning
my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering wild rose hips
in the sun
— W.S. Merwin, from his book The Compass Flower (Macmillan, 1977), also found in Migration: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2005). Copyright © 1977 by W. S. Merwin. Used by permission of the publishers.
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