Poetry and the season

Poetry is a beautiful lesson to teach your students as it is comparatively painting with words... and the poem "October's Bright Blue Weather" is an exceptionally good picture of this month.

It was written by the American poet and Novelist Helen Hunt Jackson (1831-1885) was Born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her father was a professor in Amherst College, however she spent much of her life in California. She married a banker in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she lived for a few years.

O sun 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 bumblebee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And goldenrod 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 burs
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 haunt
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers hour by hour
October's bright blue weather.

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

Take a this opportunity to point out imagery as used in the poem, what story does this tell? There is so much that can be broken out of it whether you are teaching a first or sixth grade child... Have fun and let us know what you and your students came up with.