Friday, October 12, 2007

Poetry Friday: Autumn Leaves



It seemed autumn had arrived here a few of weeks ago...but summer kept returning now and again for a visit. Few of the leaves have turned in my area of Massachusetts. Nonetheless, I have two poems about autumn leaves for you today: one written by Robert Frost and an original poem I wrote many many years ago for a collection of seasonal poems entitled Tasting the Sun.


Gathering Leaves
by Robert Frost

Spades take up leaves

No better than spoons,

And bags full of leaves

Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise

Of rustling all day

Like rabbit and deer

Running away.

But the mountains I raise

Elude my embrace,

Flowing over my arms

And into my face.

You can read the rest of the poem here.

AUTUMN CELEBRATION

by Elaine Magliaro

In October, colored leaves
Fall from oak and maple trees…
Bright confetti shaken down
From their boughs. All over town
Trees are celebrating fall,
Decorating every wall,
Sidewalk, yard, and flowerbed
With pumpkin-orange, gold, and red.
We stand out in the falling leaves
And catch confetti on our sleeves,
In our hands and in our hair.
We party till the trees are bare.



Here's a link to two more autumn poems I posted a couple of weeks ago.


Today's Poetry Friday Roundup is at Two Writing Teachers.

9 comments:

jama said...

Both poems are just so lovely. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your autumn poems, Elaine, today and previously. It's my favorite time of year, and I've enjoyed the poems! The colors one (maybe at BRG?) blew me away...

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the autumn poems. Leaves are the pormpt for Poetry Thursday's Lunch Bunch next week. I will read these both to my students.

Daniel Mahoney said...

I love this time of year, and I love your poem!

Elaine Magliaro said...

Hi, Everyone!

I love autumn here in New England. This fall has been a bit different--warm summer weather and now gray misty and rainy days. Not many of those clear, crisp days that I love so well at this time of year.

I must have written that poem more than twenty years ago. I finally changed the last few lines a few months ago.

Sara said...

"We stand out in the falling leaves
And catch confetti on our sleeves"

Oh, I love that! I'd much rather be doing that than trying to rake them up. Frost's comment about spades taking up leaves no better than spoons made me laugh. So true. Nothing really works except one of those giant sucking vacuum machines.

Mary Lee said...

Maybe the falling leaves are confetti, but the acorns falling on the roof are the explosions of fireworks. Sometimes they come rat-a-tat-a-tat in rapid succession, and other times -- boom! -- one loud one. Thankfully, the "fireworks" are almost over now. Life under a huge oak is quieter now. And buckets and barrels of acorns lie waiting to be raked and scooped up.

Elaine Magliaro said...

Sara,

I think we should just let the leaves biodegrade! Of course, the neighbors wouldn't like it when our leaves blew into their yards. But decomposed vegetaion helps to enrich the soil.


Mary Lee,

Sounds like you're in need of an army of squirrels. Don't you have a recipe for acorn pie???

JT said...

Nice selections... you have good taste! Another nice autumn themed poem for children "Windy Day"