Poem In October - Dylan Thomas

[Larry Robinson]

Poem In October

      It was my thirtieth year to heaven
   Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
      And the mussel pooled and the heron
              Priested shore
         The morning beckon
   With water praying and call of seagull and rookies 
   And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall
         Myself to set foot
              That second
      In the still sleeping town and set forth.

      My birthday began with the water-
   Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
      Above the farms and the white horses
              And I rose
          In a rainy autumn
   And walked abroad in shower of all my days
   High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
          Over the border
              And the gates
      Of the town closed as the town awoke.

      A springful of larks in a rolling
   Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
      Blackbirds and the sun of October
              Summery
          On the hill's shoulder,
   Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
   Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
          To the rain wringing
              Wind blow cold
      In the wood faraway under me.

      Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
   And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
      With its horns through mist and the castle
              Brown as owls
           But all the gardens
   Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
   Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
           There could I marvel
              My birthday
      Away but the weather turned around.

      It turned away from the blithe country
   And down the other air and the blue altered sky
      Streamed again a wonder of summer
              With apples
           Pears and red currants
   And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
   Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
           Through the parables
              Of sunlight
      And the legends of the green chapels

      And the twice told fields of infancy
   That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
      These were the woods the river and the sea
              Where a boy
           In the listening
   Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
   To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
           And the mystery
              Sang alive
      Still in the water and singing birds.

      And there could I marvel my birthday
   Away but the weather turned around. And the true
      Joy of the long dead child sang burning
              In the sun.
           It was my thirtieth
      Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
      Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
           O may my heart's truth
              Still be sung
      On this high hill in a year's turning.

	- Dylan Thomas