The Season of Grandeur and Lies

Another October poem, this one by Stephen Dunn

The Season of Grandeur and Lies

 By Stephen Dunn

 

I've had no more deathly thoughts in fall

than in any other season, and doubt

 that dark encroachment some claim to feel

 as they watch leaves turn and trees yield

 to reveal their austere, skeletal beauty.

 Maybe Keats did, but that's because

 he was actually dying, everyday coughing up

 phlegm, which, for all we know, may have

 reminded him of autumn's colors.

 Great poets, though, aren't committed

 to whatever just dawns on them or appears.

 "To Autumn" is so good it makes me want

 to stay alive. If ever he considered "phlegm"

 to describe, say, a rain-soaked golden leaf,

 his better self must have vetoed it,

 knew what to allow in, what to suppress.

 After all, he had "mellow fruitfulness"

 to live up to, all that language rich and right.

 It's so easy to falsify what one sees,

 then how one feels. These poets who would

 have us thinking of our fathers as we walk

 among apples recently fallen and bruised--

 they don't mean to lie. They just slide too far

 into the seductions of saying this is like that.

 If I found myself among apples scattered

 on the ground, I'd likely wonder who didn't

 pick them, and why. Yet even if death were

 to cross my mind, I think I'd just let it cross.

 What's ripe so often lingers before it falls.

 I prefer to be taken by surprise.