Sitting careless on a granary floor...

Poetry and I don't always get along. Give me a novel any day.Much poetry leaves me cold, but - ah - the few poems that call to me really call to me.

Today fall arrived. You must understand, this is not a gradual thing. Yesterday I wore shorts. Today, at 3 p.m., it was 48 degrees. It is drizzly and glorious.

And, to celebrate, I am going to reveal something very personal: one of those special poems.

Read it slowly, savor, and enjoy.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or, by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

-John Keats (1795-1821)

Dear poetry purists: I know the formatting isn't exactly right on this. Consider me "(d)rows'd with the fume of poppies" or something, but I can't get this program to indent the way it should, at least not tonight, and I'm going to bed. Hopefully, I'll be able to fix it tomorrow.