At this moment, I am entering data on a new book collection that was donated to the West Virginia University Library, where I work. I entered the information on a book called "The Upland Shooting Life," by George Bird Evans. Mr. Evans wrote an inscription on the flyleaf to the person to whom he gave the book, and as soon as I read it I thought of Ray Bradbury. He wrote: "The brief span of heaven that is October." Can you see why I saw the similarity? Mr. Evans was a poet, and so is Ray Bradbury--

Hello, Viktoria, welcome aboard.

There's also the October thingy as a similarity.

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Thingy is a good word.

Velkommen!

(Velkommen is a good word)

Thomas Wolfe also had a thingy for October, as evidenced in "Of Time and the River."

Obviously Mr. Evens gets it, Victoria. That’s a beautiful phrase you quoted.

"The brief span of heaven that is October."

The early morning sun rises, warming the earth.
A touch of dew glistens on now late autumn flowers,
More brilliant in color today than in mid-July.
A gentle breeze warns of cooler days soon to come.
The fresh, crisp scent of sweet grasses, soil, leaves,
Now mixed and ripened to fullness.
Hues of yellow, lavender, green, gold, red,
Splash trees across a perfect, blue sky.
Shockingly white clouds, here and there,
Float lazily into the day.
Stillness of a small town,
Moved only by early sounds of children,
Their day with no books nor bells.
Gardens galore with pumpkins, tomatoes, and peppers.
A Spirit of life, unlike any other, caresses one's cheek.
And eyes water, brimful...
From the cooling breeze?
I think not!

(From earliest childhood into my adult years, I have seen this day. My dad farmed our land, with me along side, and I have known intensely the images above when October arrives.)

Thanks for the fine verse, Viktoria. Your impressions of Mr. Bradbury's writings are precise!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: fjp451,

From "Of Time and the River," by Thomas Wolfe--

But this was the reason why these things could never be forgotten--because we are so lost, so naked and so lonely in America. Immense
and cruel skies bend over us, and all of us are driven on for ever and we have no home. Therefore, it is not the slow, the punctual
sanded drip of the unnumbered days that we remember best, the ash of time; nor is it the huge monotone of the lost years, the unswerving schedules of the lost life and the well-known faces, that we remember best. It is a face seen once and lost for ever in a crowd, an eye that looked, a face that smiled and vanished on a
passing train, it is a prescience of snow upon a certain night, the laughter of a woman in a summer street long years ago, it is the
memory of a single moon seen at the pine's dark edge in old October--and all of our lives is written in the twisting of a leaf upon a bough, a door that opened, and a stone.

For America has a thousand lights and weathers and we walk the streets, we walk the streets for ever, we walk the streets of life alone.

It is the place of the howling winds, the hurrying of the leaves in old October, the hard clean falling to the earth of acorns. The
place of the storm-tossed moaning of the wintry mountain-side, where the young men cry out in their throats and feel the savage vigour, the rude strong energies; the place also where the trains cross rivers.

It is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the one place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time.

--Now tell me he and Ray Bradbury didn't fall off the same tree!

p
l
u
n
k
!

Thank you all for your replies. October for me has been an especially bittersweet time since my Papa died October 18, 1999. He was not my biological father, but he loved me (my biological father never did). Up until then, when October came there was a special tang and rush to life that just built until that greatest of all holidays, Samhain: decorating, reading "The Halloween Tree," choosing the perfect pumpkin--and then suffering the most painful loss I have ever suffered. Every year Papa's loss mingles with this most wonderful time of the year. October always reminds me of a very sick person who seems to one day be much better--just before they die. The year is at its most beautiful in October just before it fades into the monochromatic beauty of November and the stark beauty of winter--Forgive me, Mr. Bradbury has inspired me, too--

Nothing to forgive! That was beautiful, thanks for sharing. Sorry about your loss.