Silver Lake Conference Center Haiku

I’ve just returned home from a week co-deaning with Alison at the marvelous Silver Lake Conference Center in Sharon, CT. We led a conference for 30 5th and 6th graders titled, “God’s Imaginarium.” I’ll write something longer about it, but one of the bits I contributed was a poetry unit. I taught (or reminded, in some cases) them the basics of haiku and then sent them outside to find something to write about. Then we sat in a circle and shared what we had. Almost every one of them wrote a poem, despite the predictable complaining when I told them that’s what we were going to do next. Some illustrated them. A few even turned theirs in to be published in the camp magazine. I found the inspiration for mine just outside the door of our building. Here it is:

LIFE IS EVERYWHERE
Wisdom on a woodshed plank.
Look. Listen. Rejoice.

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Welcome October

October has always been one of my favorite months, even before I figured out I was a fan and creator of horror and dark fantasy.  The colors.  The crisp air.  The fields full of pumpkins.  The quality of light. October has a distinct personality. It is the pinnacle of Autumn, the last golden flare of life before the inevitable plunge into the long, cold dark beyond.  October inspires.  Here are a few quotes I rounded up in celebration of the first day of October.

“That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”
― Ray Bradbury, The October Country

“There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on 
the feelings, as now in October.” 
– Nathaniel Hawthorne

“October is nature’s funeral month.  Nature glories in death more than in life.  The month of departure is more beautiful than the month of coming – October than May.  Every green thin loves to die in bright colors.”
– Henry Ward Beecher

“All things on earth point home in old October: sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.”
– Thomas Wolfe

“Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea’s side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.”
– Dylan Thomas, Especially When the October Wind

“October is the fallen leaf, but it is also a wider horizon more clearly seen. It is the distant hills once more in sight, and the enduring constellations above them once again.” 
– Hal Borland

“October is crisp days and cool nights, a time to curl up around the dancing flames and sink into a good book.”
– Unknown

“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!”
– Humbert Wolfe

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