An open access publication of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Winter 2004

October

Author
David Ferry
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David Ferry, a Fellow of the American Academy since 1998, is Sophie Chantal Hart Professor Emeritus at Wellesley College and a visiting lecturer in creative writing at Boston University. His books of poetry and translation include “His Epistles of Horace: A Translation” (2001), “Of No Country I Know” (1999), and “The Eclogues of Virgil” (1999).

October


The day was hot, and entirely breathless, so
The remarkably quiet, remarkably steady leaf fall
Seemed as if it had no cause at all.

The ticking sound of falling leaves was like
The ticking sound of gentle rainfall as
They quietly fell on leaves already fallen,

Or as, when as they passed them in their falling,
Now and again it happened that one of them touched
One or another leaf still on the tree,

Still clinging to the idea of being summer:
As if the leaves that were falling, but not the day,
Had read, and understood, the calendar.