The ripe, the golden month has come again, and in Virginia the chinkapins are falling. Frost sharps the middle music of the seasons, and all things living on the earth turn home again… the fields are cut, the granaries are full, the bins are loaded to the brim with fatness, and from the cider-press the...

October had tremendous possibility. The summer’s oppressive heat was a distant memory, and the golden leaves promised a world full of beautiful adventures. They made me believe in miracles.

After the keen still days of September, the October sun filled the world with mellow warmth…The maple tree in front of the doorstep burned like a gigantic red torch. The oaks along the roadway glowed yellow and bronze. The fields stretched like a carpet of jewels, emerald and topaz and garnet. Everywhere she walked the...

We made love like September swims in August. But that’s natural, because it’s too cold to go swimming in October.

When they turned off, it was still early in the pink and green fields. The fumes of morning, sweet and bitter, sprang up where they walked. The insects ticked softly, their strength in reserve; butterflies chopped the air, going to the east, and the birds flew carelessly and sang by fits.They went down again and...

OctoberO love, turn from the changing sea and gaze,Down these grey slopes, upon the year grown old,A-dying ‘mid the autumn-scented hazeThat hangeth o’er the hollow in the wold,Where the wind-bitten ancient elms infoldGrey church, long barn, orchard, and red-roofed stead,Wrought in dead days for men a long while dead.Come down, O love; may not our...

I can’t find her.”Then… some idiot turned on the lights.(“The October Game”)

Everyone tends to think of October as being an autumn month. Not so much in south Alabama, usually. There, it’s another warm, if not hot, summer month. But the Alabama summer heat will sometimes get broken by cooler days. The haze of the depth of summer lifts, the humidity backs off, and the sky takes...

Ah, September! You are the doorway to the season that awakens my soul… but I must confess that I love you only because you are a prelude to my beloved October.

He had never liked October. Ever since he had first lay in the autumn leaves before his grandmother’s house many years ago and heard the wind and saw the empty trees. It had made him cry, without a reason. And a little of that sadness returned each year to him. It always went away with...

October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins. O autumn! O teakettle! O grace!

Autumn flings her fiery cloak over the sumac, beech and oak.

The crickets still sing in October. And lilly, she’s trying to bloom. Tho she’s resting her head on the shoulder of death, she still shines by the light of the moon.

October’s PartyOctober gave a party;The leaves by hundreds came -The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,And leaves of every name.The Sunshine spread a carpet,And everything was grand,Miss Weather led the dancing,Professor Wind the band.

I wish I could wrap up the glitter star-green of this moment and hand it to you like an angel gift. Give you the heat lightning flying in jagged silence over the distant mountains. And the smell of September prairie grass and the even fainter scent of October pine now descending . . .

I was only twelve. But I knew how much I loved her. It was that love that comes before all significance of body and morals. It was that love that was no more bad than wind and sea and sand lying side by side forever. It was made of all the warm long days together...

I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.

Anne reveled in the world of color about her.”Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple...

She raised a sharp eyebrow at him. “Vlad, no offense, but look at you. If you’re not a vampire, you’re clearly the most anemic goth I’ve ever seen.”… “We believed you. Because that’s what friends do.”pg267 October to Vlad

October proved a riot a riot to the senses and climaxed those giddy last weeks before Halloween.

AUTUMNAL Pale amber sunlight falls across The reddening October trees, That hardly sway before a breeze As soft as summer: summer’s loss Seems little, dear! on days like these. Let misty autumn be our part! The twilight of the year is sweet: Where shadow and the darkness meet Our love, a twilight of the heart...

At the edge you will always remember me, at the edge you will last be remembered, where sanity and insanity come together, for the time, then separates. Like leaves on October trees, that color the world, but for a moment, then leave. At the edge, where life losses its edginess, and thoughts we will become...