A Book of the Seasons: October 10.

October 10.

The chickadee now 

reminds me of the winter –

sounding all alone.

October 10, 1851

Some maples which a week ago
were a mass of yellow foliage

are now a fine gray smoke, as it were,
and their leaves cover the ground.
October 10, 1851

The chickadee, sounding all alone,

now that birds are getting scarce,

reminds me of the winter,

in which it almost alone is heard.

October 10, 1851

You make a great noise now
walking in the woods.

Now all nature is a dried herb,
full of medicinal odors.
October 10, 1851

How agreeable 

the color of new-fallen 

leaves at this season

October 10, 1851

You make a great noise now walking in the woods, on account of the dry leaves, that cover the ground . . .  Now is the time to enjoy the dry leaves. Now all nature is a dried herb, full of medicinal odors. 

Walking in the woods –

now is the time to enjoy

the noise of dry leaves.

October 10, 1851 


Now is the time to
enjoy the noise of dry leaves,
walking in the woods.
October 10, 1851 

You make a great noise
walking in the woods now.
The new-fallen leaves.
October 10, 1851

Flocks of small sparrows
washing and pruning themselves
after a long flight.
October 10, 1853


A young man shows me
a small duck he shot in the
river from my boat.
October 10, 1855 

The most brilliant days
in the year ushered in by
these frosty mornings.
October 10, 1857

So bright and serene

and such a sheen from the earth –

so ripe the season.

October 10, 1857

November has come
to the river with the fall
of the black willow.
October 10, 1858

Genius is inspired
by its own works; it is
hermaphroditic.
October 10, 1858


White-throated sparrows
together with myrtle-birds
close up to the house.
October 10, 1859

October 10, 2015

O

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality."

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2019