OCTOBER Season of masquerade and ragged flowers, You have returned to tempt me, bringing days Warm as remembered summer; but the hours Of night are dank, the fallen leaf decays. I see your mask, and yet the sky at noon Recalls the time when evening did not chill So suddenly, no fires start so soon, Nor voices of the watchers sound so shrill. Uneasy season, let my heart alone, I have long feared your kind. You shall deceive Others, not me, this year, for I have grown Tired of early sunsets, and I grieve Less for those things I cannot hold or own Than for all bright, brief favors I receive. Alison Bradford “Island Dreams: The Live Poets’ Society of Boca Grande”
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