"October" by Patrick Kavanagh
 

At the "Poets' Landscapes and Sense of Place" panel at West Chester last Thursday, Micheal O'Siadhail read "October" by Patrick Kavanagh. I have rarely been so moved by a single poem.

I'll be ordering Kavanagh's collected online, but I was wondering if, in the meantime, any Sphereans might be able to email me the text of that wonderful poem.

I'm at catherineDOTchandlerDOTpoetryATgmailDOTcom

Many thanks in advance.

Cathy

I've received it, and the sender has been thanked!

And now you've got two copies. Sorry to clog your in-box but I didn't see that you'd already received it until after I'd hit "Send".
Gregory

Thanks Greg. It's not as though my in-box is overly crowded :). Were you at the panel where the poem was read?

The Collected is a great volume, Cathy.

Nemo

Why not post it here? I'm sure others would love to read it, especially those, like me, who missed the panel.

Chris

Hear hear!

Here it is, by Patrick Kavanagh:

OCTOBER


O leafy yellowness you create for me
A world that was and now is poised above time,
I do not need to puzzle out Eternity
As I walk this arboreal street on the edge of a town.
The breeze too, even the temperature
And pattern of movement is precisely the same
As broke my heart for youth passing. Now I am sure
Of something. Something will be mine wherever I am.
I want to throw myself on the public street without caring
For anything but the prayering that the earth offers.
It is October over all my life and the light is staring
As it caught me once in a plantation by the fox coverts.
A man is ploughing ground for winter wheat
And my nineteen years weigh heavily on my feet.



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