October’s Bright Blue Weather!”

Notation: I’m certain there are some beaches on our planet where it’s conducive to skinny-dip during the month of October!

October’s Bright Blue Weather

by: Helen Hunt Jackson

O suns and skies and clouds of June,

and flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October’s bright blue weather.

When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,

Belated, thriftless, vagrant,

And golden-rod is dying fast,

And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When gentians roll their fringes tight

to save them for the morning,

And chestnuts fall from satin burrs

Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie

In piles like jewels shining,

And redder still on old stone walls

Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things

Their white-winged seeds are sowing,

And in the fields, still green and fair,

Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,

In idle golden freighting,

Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush

Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,

By twos and twos together,

And counts like misers, hour by hour,

October’s bright blue weather.

O suns and skies and flowers of June,

Count all your boasts together,

Love loveth best of all the year

October’s bright blue weather.

End

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While my identical twin brother, Alex, and I were students at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind residential school, we had several teachers who had us memorize poetry and then recite the poems using American Sign Language (ASL) in front of our class. Fine. Memorizing wasn’t impossible but the order of the grammar the poets used and the sense it did not make was confusing. Delightful students that we were, we simply committed the poems to our memory and put comprehension to the wayside. After all, our task was simple: complete the job and move on to the next level.

Our teachers always explained to us students and to our parents that this lesson of us reciting poetry helped us to develop comprehension of English as a language, as opposed to ASL. That may have appeared as a valid reasoning for a few but we students understood it for exactly what it was intended to be: busy work! Keep us occupied!

Our teacher who required us to commit this poem, “October’s Bright Blue Weather” was one of my personal favourites of my primary school years. This happened to be the very first of nine poems she assigned us. Even today, I am still able to recall the first opening lines of the poem, without hesitation.

Enjoy “October’s Bright Blue Weather!”

Naked hugs!

Roger Poladopoulos/ReNude Pride

Author’s Note: The next post entry here is planned for Monday, October 30, 2023, and the proposed topic is: “The Boys In The Band!”