October’s poem

A dead racoon lay in the middle of our street, in front of our house. Someone put a traffic cone next to it to alert passing cars. The racoon remained there for many hours.

No city official collected the racoon.

Our next-door neighbors – jovial young men – held a memorial service for the racoon and buried it in their back yard. I applaud the sentiment but worry. Scent of racoon attracts more racoon.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It’s chilly in the house. Our brand-new furnace provided heat for two days. Then it quit.

Not that I’ll be affected much. Repairs have been comissioned, and meanwhile I’ll fly to Texas to visit David, Ana, Ada, George, and Russell (the dog). The forecast there is for temperatures in the 70s and 80s, F.

Ana & David have jobs, and Ada and George go to day-care, so I’ll have time to myself. I intend to walk, ride the bus, eat, and read – things I used to do when I was a bachelor. I’ve pared down my cargo to these texts:

• The Bible
• Daphne Du Maurier, Don’t Look Now: Stories (I’ll probably just read one or two longish ones)
• R. M. Dworkin, ed., The Philosophy of Law (probably just one or two articles)
• Dolores Hitchens, Sleep with Strangers (unless I finish it tonight)
• Alasdair MacIntyre, The Unconscious
• Ronald Hugh Morrieson, The Scarecrow

I’ll use the Internet to continue reading Macbeth.

So, in addition to Scripture: texts of criminality, deviance, and buried desire. My usual seasonal fare.

Ecuador and Bolivia will play in La Paz on Thursday. David and I will watch that game together.

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October’s poem is “October”:

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

The crows above the forest call;

Tomorrow they may form and go.

O hushed October morning mild,

Begin the hours of this day slow.

Make the day seem to us less brief.

Hearts not averse to being beguiled,

Beguile us in the way you know.

Release one leaf at break of day;

At noon release another leaf;

One from our trees, one far away.

Retard the sun with gentle mist;

Enchant the land with amethyst.

Slow, slow!

For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,

Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,

Whose clustered fruit must else be lost –

For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(Robert Frost)

A funeral; autumn; Dames Daphne and Agatha; who should have played Ariadne Oliver?

R.I.P. Carolyn (1934–2023), a kindly woman in our church who took a shine to our family. Karin & I attended her funeral – or Karin did; I remained in a Sunday School room with our offspring.

(Samuel and Daniel took turns gently pushing a doll in a pram, in circles, in the Sunday School room. By “took turns,” I mean they fought each other for the privilege.)

(Daniel sits on my shoulder as I type this and whacks me on the head. Will the violence ever cease?)

As the weather changes, my thoughts direct themselves toward pleasantly gloomy, autumnal things. Karin already has put our mermaid-skeleton on display. Indeed, she did so before the equinox. … Like my mother, who has gone to Minnesota to look at the leaves, I plan to take a short journey, within a month’s time; I have been thinking of what to read on the airplane. The current frontrunner is a volume of stories by Daphne Du Maurier: “Don’t Look Now,” “The Birds,” etc.

Kenneth Branagh has made a new Poirot movie, A Haunting in Venice, which evokes Du Maurier more than its ostensive source material, Agatha Christie’s novel Hallowe’en Party – which is set, not along the canals of Venice, but in the gardens and lanes of England. Ariadne Oliver is played by Tina Fey, which is another heresy. I should have preferred Nicola Walker.

I’ve almost finished reading the much-funnier-than-expected King John and have decided that instead of choosing my next play by lot, I’ll just reread Macbeth.