Autumn Movement

Posted by DJL on Sep 21, 2013 in Poetry | 0 comments

Commuting from Philadelphia to St. Paul this fall – and with multiple side trips ranging from North Dakota to Virginia and the Carolinas — I’ve been more sensitive than usual to the common rhythm of seasonal change and to the diverse ways that change occurs in different parts of the country. For instance, in St. Paul this morning, as if in sync with the calendar, there is a new bite of cold to the breeze and a dampness that comes less from rain than from the decaying of the leaves that are now turning and falling.

Carl Sandburg’s short but beautiful “Autumn Movement” witnesses to this change. But it also links the movement of seasons – and particularly the movement from the lush vibrancy of summer to the decay of autumn – to the movement of our hearts. For we, like the voice of Sandburg’s narrator, constantly – and understandably – hold steadfastly to whatever it is we may cherish in the hope that it will last. The beauty of summer, youth, our children, whatever – none of this lasts, for all of life  is fleeting, but we so wish it would.

The pitch and tenor of the poem is reminiscent of the Teacher in Ecclesiastes, offering a realism that invites what at first appears a stark assessment of our condition but then yields to the recognition that it is only by releasing one particular beauty to decay that we can detect, and be delighted by, a new beauty. So whether it is a relationship, or a season, or the very soul and spirit that animates us, death always and ineluctably precedes resurrection, and so to be reborn you must first accept that you will die.

Enjoy Sandburg’s poem, mourn the loss of the summer hues we have enjoyed, but also be on the lookout for the precious, if also fleeting, beauty of what will come next.

Autumn Movement

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman,
      the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things
      come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go,
      not one lasts.

Carl Sandburg, 1878-1967.