[Julie Steiner]

Norman Ball has thrown down this gauntlet:

Originally Posted by Norman Ball

...I see the ramping up of Fall poems across the way, so it got me thunkin'...

It's an interesting (though perhaps ill--fated) poetic challenge to re-imagine Fall without recourse to leaves, amber, crunching sounds or rakes. Can it be done, or has the season itself been permanently consigned to certain obligatory touchstones?

Graves (notoriously stingy over the appellation of 'poet') suggests that poetry is inseparable from the rhythms of moon (and menstrual) cycles, crop yields, fallow and pregnant fields, etc. Thus poetry itself is a celebration of the seasonal ebb and flow of fertility. Surely the modern, urban (urbane?) poet might take exception to this very narrow furrow.

Does Fall have residual meaning beyond fertility in abeyance, in which case the onslaught of falling leaves may become well-nigh unavoidable?

Andrew M. responded:

Originally Posted by Andrew Mandelbaum

Norm! Make a list of all the touchstones forbidden by the Arlington Manifesto and then let's have a challenge to write a piece to Autumn without them. If they all suck, we will know.

Okay, let's have at it, then. I'm at a huge advantage, living in San Diego...although yesterday it was 103F, so maybe not. I mainly know it's autumn because I'm walking face-first into so many spiderwebs. And because my husband's constantly watching football.

[RCL]

Bereavements

When fall winds tear and twist the kites,
those diving planes leave kids bereft.
Summer breezes tantalized their kites
too soon confined to tree-bound heights.
Hung up on branches, the battered kites
have lost their lift and look bereft.
When fall winds tear and twist the kites,
those captured kites leave kids bereft.

[Roger Slater]

I started out with a leafless fall, but ended up having to add another season to the mix as well:


FALL AND WINTER

Day by day
the daylight shrinks,
but then just when
the whole world thinks

the daylight's doomed
to disappear,
help arrives.
Winter's here.

Unlikely hero,
how it snows!
But day by day
the daylight grows.

[Douglas G. Brown]

I don't know who wrote this, but it comes to mind about the 3rd week of January. Anyway, it is devoid of any saccharine poetic sentiment;

Spring has sprung,
Fall has fell;
Winter's come,
And it's cold as hell.

[Gail White]

Douglas, the version of this that I remember is:

Spring has Sprung
Fall has fell
Summer's here
and it's hot as usual.

[Douglas G. Brown]

Gail,

I've never heard your version. I'm guessing that our difference in latitude has something to do with it.

[Brian Allgar]

Seeing the first line, I was expecting it to be this:

Spring is sprung
Da grass is riz
I wonder where dem boidies is
Da little boid is on da wing
Ain't dat absoid?
Da wing is on da boid

[Susan McLean]

[Removed in order to submit]

[Graham King]

Originally Posted by Brian Allgar

Seeing the first line, I was expecting it to be this:

Spring is sprung
Da grass is riz
I wonder where dem boidies is
Da little boid is on da wing
Ain't dat absoid?
Da wing is on da boid

I believe that this may derive from part of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam [in Edward FitzGerald's Translation]:
7.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly---and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

I don't recall where I heard that connection stated, if I did.

[Graham King]

Not meeting the brief but written against Keats' celebratory Ode to Autumn,

Ode against Autumn

Season of blistered yellow bootfulness!
My Wellingtons pinch close, yet they admit
Thy vagrant leafloads round my socks – a mess
That then gets trampled through the house, all wet.

Dank paths, well-moss’d and slimy-lichen’d o’er,
Pose traps for unaware or hasty feet;
My rear swells with a ripe bruise that’s full sore
Where I have fallen hard upon my seat.

The harvest fails, while grass, too wet for mowers
To tackle, lies rank yet; wan, o’ergrown.
What Summer had we? Chill winds! Rash downpours
Of rain, that left streams, and streets, o’erflown.

Ye seasons now dance wanton, run amuck;
Your faces’ once-known features shift and creep.
With thee, altered Autumn, I’ll have no truck!
I’d better spend half of each year asleep.