In case you didn’t get a chance to stop by the poetry post in the Hoffman Wonder Garden in October here is Connie Soper’s poem. Click here to see the selections for November and the upcoming months.
October
Meet me between the hedges with a tool
worn smooth from the palms of other seasons.
Rake into the Ides of October
as if combing autumn’s burnished hair.
Vine maples have just begun to shake loose
from summer’s grip—let the changing settle, undisturbed
as foliage drifts with a randomness of its own making
to mingle with the bruise of apples and dahlias
deadheaded from gardens. Let coppered leaves confetti
pumpkin patches and Halloween porches. Gather them
into fiery piles, already steeped into an olio of petrichored
amber and bottlebrush red. Let oak and yellow gingko
find fellowship with each other as they cannot on trees—
scattering in quiet ceremony. Watch maple leaves,
big as hands, untwist stem from branch to pucker
at your feet, percolating with all the other fallen colors.
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Connie Soper is a poet-hiker who lives in Portland and in Manzanita, greatly inspired by her connection to the coastal terrain.
