Well, it’s time for Autumn poems to come to an end since we are into November, overnight lows are in the 20s, and Thanksgiving is next week! But before we end this I need to remind you that the art of poetry is not easy, and the poems we read are not easily written. As William Faulkner told The Paris Review in 1956 - “Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.” This after starting with two books of poetry that failed, pushing him to the short story, then novels, and eventually the Nobel Prize for literature.
We need to appreciate good poetry, which reminds me that I should thank my teachers, especially Ms. Ruth Dawson and Anne Taylor, for trying their best to get us crazy students to pay attention and accept good literature. You may not have thought so then, but at times we were listening.
I will end the Autumn poems with one set to music, a fine song written by Joni Mitchell and originally recorded by Tom Rush in 1968. He first took the song to Judy Collins but she was not interested in it, so he changed the pronouns and recorded it himself. Ms. Mitchell was from Canada but settled down and completed some of her most acclaimed songs while living in Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon area in the early ‘70s. The Canyon was the center of counterculture attitudes in the mid-60s and early ’70s, with residents such as Cass Elliot, Jim Morrison, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Eagles, Neil Young, Brian Wilson, Jackson Brown, James Taylor, and many more. In fact, the house she lived in was immortalized in the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song “Our House” (1970,) written by her then-lover Graham Nash.
I promise the words to this poem will move you out of Autumn and toward Winter – after reading them find Tom Rush on Youtube, Spotify, or however you listen to music and see what you think.
Urge for Going
Joni Mitchell
I awoke today and found
the frost perched on the town
It hovered in a frozen sky
then it gobbled summer down
When the sun turns traitor cold
and all the trees are shivering in a naked row...
I get the urge for going
But I never seem to go
I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down and winter is closing in
I had a man in summertime
He had summer-colored skin
And not another girl in town
My darling’s heart could win
But when the leaves fell on the ground
And bully winds came around
and pushed them face down in the snow...
He got the urge for going
And I had to let him go
He got the urge for going
When the meadow grass was turning brown
And summertime was falling down and winter was closing in
Now the warriors of winter give a cold triumphant shout
And all that stays is dying all that lives is gettin’ out
See the geese in chevron flight
Flapping and racing on before the snow...
They’ve got the urge for going
And they’ve got the wings to go
They get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down and winter is closing in
I’ll ply the fire with kindling now
I’ll pull the blankets up to my chin
I’ll lock the vagrant winter out
And I’ll bolt my wandering in
I’d like to call back summertime
And have her stay for just another month or so...
But she’s got the urge for going
So I guess she’ll have to go
She gets the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And all her empire’s falling down
And winter’s closing in.
And I get the urge for going
When the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is Falling Down.