Sensing October

I pull October from the mist,
gather up the weaves
after the storm has tried to strip
the trees of blushing leaves.

I wind them round my finger,
the delicate wisps that linger
in fallen apples rotting
into cider scent, in dangling

corpses of daddy-longlegs
and dew-encrusted spider-webs
woven in between red sunsets
and orange mornings.

I untangle gossamer spanning time
and space to make October mine.

Kim M. Russell, 30th September 2020

Image by Frances Gunn on Unsplash

My response to Poets and Storytellers United Weekly Scribblings #39: October Thrills

Magaly is back, excited about the coming month of October: ‘pumpkin chili and skull cakes …the all-around overabundance of witchy hats …scary prose and creepy poetry’! She has shared prose and poetry about October from L. M. Montgomery, Neil Gaiman and Robert Frost.

For today’s prompt, we are creating new poetry or prose inspired by anything October. Magaly asks us to ‘think of traditions, colors, rituals, folklore, memories of events lived in that month… and then write, link, read, and share your thoughts on the contributions of others’.

I have reworked a poem I wrote in October 2018.

30 thoughts on “Sensing October”

  5. I love that your poem reads like a spell–October perfect–the imagery, too. I can practically see hands guiding October out of the mist, gliding through the brightest of fallen leaves. This is just beautiful, Kim! Perhaps a strange thing to say when some lines contain the corpses of spiders, but what can I say? Live (and death) happens, and we must do the best we can with that.

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  9. Seems that your October might be a catch all for summer’s discards. Walking London I remember the pretty fallen leaves blown under and around the sidewalk benches. Our granddaughter then three and four loved walking through them and scattering as the would.
    I like your write, such delightful imaging. I visited this morning here but had to leave without saying hello, Hi.
    ..

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    1. Thank you, Bev. It’s not so colourful today. We’re back to grey skies and persistent rain, and expect gales as strong as last week’s, when they did incredible damage and we lost power. We already have sandbags out.

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