THE LOVE OF OCTOBER
A child looking at ruins grows younger
but cold
and wants to wake to a new name
I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring
… walnut and may leaves the color
of shoulders at the end of summer
a month that has been to the mountain
and become light there
the long grass lies pointing uphill
even in death for a reason
that none of us knows
and the wren laughs in the early shade now
come again shining glance in your good time
naked air late morning
my love is for lightness
of touch foot feather
the day is yet one more yellow leaf
and without turning I kiss the light
by an old well on the last of the month
gathering wild rose hips
in the sun.
–W.S. Merwin
Gladsome Lights 
I don’t know what he means by the wren laughing in the sun, but I have heard the wren more, lately.
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I love Merwin’s poetry, and I especially love being introduced to an unfamiliar poem of his. I’m always amused by the fact that, once I know he’s the author, I re-read the poem and think, “Of course.” Why I don’t recognize a poem as his immediately is part of his genius; he draws me in so quickly that authorship hardly matters. The poem seems somehow perfect and inevitable, as though the words sprang fully formed from the universe.
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This is really lovely, Gretchen.
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