There are few things in the world more visually stunning than a vineyard in the mercurialy pathos-laden clutches of autumn. Autumn in and of itself seems perennially notable for the broodingly poetic emotions it evokes, from the compellingly beautific and austere brilliances of Basho’s haiku:
Autumn moonlight–
a worm digs silently
into the chestnut.
to the heart-rendingly blunt heartland realism of James Wright:
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.
All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like starved pullets,
Dying for love.
Therefore,
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October,
And gallop terribly against each other’s bodies.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free.
Command the fruits to swell on tree and vine;
grant them a few more warm transparent days,
urge them on to fulfillment then, and press
the final sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house now, will never have one.
Whoever is alone will stay alone,
will sit, read, write long letters through the
evening,
and wander the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.
