Poem in October
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas took a morning walk above a seaside town in his native Wales, tasting the first 30 years of his life. I love the music and the play of sound that Thomas wove into the poem. It seems to be discovery of how much he had carried with him from his youth. He recognized the quiet power of nature, the changes he had experienced, and the mysteries that his mother showed him as a child. The images are powerful – the rising, the growing distance of the town and harbor, the birdlife, the rain, the orchards.
Dennis Noren
Software Engineer
Board Member, Poetry Center San Jose
Campbell
Poem in October
It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.
My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.
A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill’s shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me. Continue reading
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