Samhainby Annie Finch
(The Celtic Halloween)
In the season leaves should love,
since it gives them leave to move
through the wind, towards the ground
they were watching while they hung,
legend says there is a seam
stitching darkness like a name.
Now when dying grasses veil
earth from the sky in one last pale
wave, as autumn dies to bring
winter back, and then the spring,
we who die ourselves can peel
back another kind of veil
that hangs among us like thick smoke.
Tonight at last I feel it shake.
I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor.
I move my hand and feel a touch
move with me, and when I brush
my own mind across another,
I am with my mother's mother.
Sure as footsteps in my waiting
self, I find her, and she brings
arms that carry answers for me,
intimate, a waiting bounty.
"Carry me." She leaves this trail
through a shudder of the veil,
and leaves, like amber where she stays,
a gift for her perpetual gaze.
Find this poem on the Poetry Foundation website.
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I don’t often read a book in one or two sittings, but October, October by Katya Balen was so good I had to. It arrived toward the end of last week and I starting reading it last night because it was already the 30th of October. This morning one of our cats woke me up at 5:45 so I stayed in bed and finished it.
This novel is written from the POV of October. I appreciated this single narrative as so many books these days skip backward and forward in time with different narrators which can be confusing. October lives in the woods with her dad. Her mother left when she was four and October’s never forgiven her. She fiercely loves her wild life with her dad, relishing everything from cold dips in the pond to climbing trees, cooking over an open fire, and growing their own food. On her eleventh birthday, her dad has an accident and she has to go live with her mother in London.
The story is told from the perspective of this sensitive young girl who just like any wild thing feels overwhelmed and out of place surrounded by walls, traffic noise, crowds of people, rules, clocks, etc. She misses her father and doesn’t know, like, or appreciate her mother, so she feels dreadfully alone and afraid. Her descriptions of how she is feeling when she’s overwhelmed by fear or anger or the noises and sensory input around her will probably be relatable to people who are highly sensitive.
This is a story of letting go of old and hurtful stories that we tell ourselves, how to see things differently, that new beginnings and new stories are possible, and that even in dark or confusing times, beauty, hope, friendship, and wild adventures can happen. It’s a story of changing, growing up, forgiveness of oneself and others, and a reminder that love surrounds us if we open to it.
I highly recommend October, October to lovers of exceptional stories with a vibrant protagonist you can root for and a feel-good, redemptive, sensible ending, those who enjoy YA or books in the 9-12 year old range. It won a Yoto Carnegie Medal in the UK and, if you like owls, this book features one. I won’t tell you more than that. Happy reading! If you’ve read it already, please share in comments!!
Life of Kim 