All Hallows

my lovingly carved pumpkin

my lovingly scary nephew

All Hallows
by Louise Gluck


Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
sleep in their blue yoke,
the fields having been
picked clean, the sheaves
bound evenly and piled at the roadside
among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:

This is the barrenness
of harvest or pestilence.
And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment,
and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling
Come here 
Come here, little one

And the soul creeps out of the tree.

i took a few pictures this weekend too.

found this that I like, a little bit of a poem
by Bobbi Katz, October:


October is
when night guzzles up
the orange sherbet sunset
and sends the day
to bed
before supper

in his viewfinder

today I spent some time at the farm. mom & I cleaned up & organized the garage/garden storage. we brought in plants & swept up drifts of leaves & peacock feathers. while my niece collected feathers, my nephew needed to explore. so I handed him my camera, showed him how to use it & told him to be careful with it.

I didn't look at the photos until now. the barn above & the pix below are his creations. they all make me smile.

handfuls

last night was the first freeze. tonight is the next.

so I picked the few zinnias still blooming. and my last handful of basil.

this is the time of year when things begin to slow down. and remember where the warm places are.

before I left, a new season started rolling in.

he came home from work late one night, coming inside saying, "you have to just see this!"

and so I threw on my jacket and stepped outside, forgetting shoes. and falling from the nighttime stars were huge, sloppy, soft flakes of snow. it was beautiful.

the next morning in the sunlight it all fell from the trees. looking like glitter.

I love that this will be my second Fall in New Mexico.


we bought locally grown Yellow Delicious apples from a farmer wearing a mustache & a cowboy hat. they were crisp & sweet. he told us to take a few "rejects" from the box on the ground too. so later I cut out the bruises, chopped up the good pieces, soaked them in cinnamon & sugar, and threw little piles in between layers of pastry dough. then covered in a sugary glaze, they were definitely worth that morning stroll to the farmer's market.

and, october.

cute, but nervous, pygmy goats at the wool festival.

beautiful wool in many shades of grey. from a farm in colorado.
didn't buy any wool. but bought things made from it.

Fall is in New Mexico. a view over the fence in the adobe's yard.

a very dark night. & walking into a warm home.