The ship that took my mother to Ellis Island
Eighty-three years ago was named "The Mercy."
She remembers trying to eat a banana
without first peeling it and seeing her first orange
in the hands of a young Scot, a seaman
who gave her a bite and wiped her mouth for her
with a red bandana and taught her the word,
"orange," saying it patiently over and over. Read more about The Mercy
The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
Read more about December Story>December.
Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
October Weather
by Mabel Douglas Essay
(October weather is unusually warm in southern Wisconsin this year. This is more a wish than an observation.)
Read more about October Weather>There's a certain eerie sadness
Tempered with exultant gladness
In October weather.Vanished is June's fertile sweetness,
July's mellow rare completeness;
August fleeing with September
Leaves a beauty earth remembers
In October weather.
I wish I could share so many of the lovely poems of autumn, the poems that tell of ripening apples and smiling sunflowers, brisk and crispy air, the laughter of children going to school, the ending of glorious summer and the beginning of a fruitful and colorful fall. But this year I just can't. From one corner of the country to another communities are on fire, cities are under water, hospitals have no room for more sick, people are dying from heat prostration and states are bent on punishing those who have learned to breath free. Read more about The Dying Garden