October (Tissue Warning)

My Grandma loved poetry. So often something she would see would remind her of a line from a poem she had memorized, so she would share a line or two from the verse... sometimes the whole thing. The one I remember best is "October's bright blue weather" but that's all I ever really knew of the poem.

Driving home the other day, the sky was cloudless and a brilliant blue. I was talking with Mr. B on the phone at the time, and told him about Grandma, and her bright blue October skies and her love for poetry.

Yesterday, he sent me a text, asking if he could call me at work. I replied sure. He called back and said, "Can I read something to you?" "Of course," I replied.

He began...
O Suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather;

When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And Golden-Rod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;

When Gentians roll their fringes tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;

When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;

When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields, still green and fair,
Late aftermaths are growing;

When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;

When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October's bright blue weather.

O suns and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October's bright blue weather.

He found it... and read it to me... and instantly two people who are among the most dear to me, and will never get to know one another, are forever linked, by October's bright blue weather.