{"sf1_id":1701639,"sf2_id":"rn9pM5mD","title":"Autumn Is A Pagan","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":591,"posted_at":"2021-03-31T22:23:00.000Z","tags":["Iambic Septameter","Poetry","Quatrains"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1701639-autumn-is-a-pagan","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/rn9pM5mD","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/59/71/5971722a-132d-4c3e-824b-50616b25a0e2","description":"#14 of poetry\n\nThe first step toward the building of culture is anthropomorphization, and not just in a Synonym-for-furry way. People relate to people. In order to have a relation to things, you have to find a way for those things-the sky, the sea, the sunset, the seasons, the weird chainsaw sculpture at the daily bus stop to work-to be people.","content":"Autumn, he is wandering down in the market square\n\nWhere they are selling scarlet fruit and golden-tassled sheaves\n\nHeaped on the fitted cobbles that are cloaked in drifting leaves,\n\nAnd any citizen who likes can see him walking there.\n\nHe talks of truth and beauty, and the shameful price of bread.\n\nHe laughs at you, and passes you another mug of beer.\n\nHe wears a long brown coat, for it gets cold this time of year,\n\nAnd crown of crimson bittersweet wound round his nut-brown head.\n\nThe old and weary gods stop by. He knows them each by name\n\nFor Autumn is a pagan and is older far than I.\n\nRed leaves, grey clouds, gold harvest smells all haunt his heathen sky\n\nFor Autumn is a pagan and I love him just the same.\n\n  \n\nSpring is an agnostic, and she does not care to know\n\nThe names of any firework flowers that bloom around her feet.\n\nShe is too young to recognize the homeless in the street,\n\nBut smiles at them, to let them thaw a bit before they go.\n\nSome days she is a Pantheist. Then every bloom is good,\n\nThe bees are buzzing hymns and if they sting you feel no pain.\n\nSome days she is a Buddhist and wants nothing but more rain.\n\nSome days she simply rages out the madness in her blood.\n\nBut Autumn is a pagan, and he is worldly-wise.\n\nHe is older, he is sadder, he knows everything, I think:\n\nHe knows why sacrifice is holy even in its stink,\n\nAnd he is who I see at night when I have shut my eyes.\n\n  \n\nSummer is an atheist, loud, angry, unafraid.\n\nWhen he gets drunk his bitter laughter thunders in black storms,\n\nWhen he lies down to bed at last the night air remains warm,  \nHe gave his word it would, you see. And all his debts are paid.\n\nHe forgives not. He forgets not. And to protect his own\n\nHe'll bleed and batter you, himself, and anyone he must.\n\nHe is the very superman: a lusty youth, and just,\n\nAnd if he fears old age and time, he does not make it shown.\n\nBut Autumn is a pagan, and he has a gentler soul.\n\nHe knows she did not make the world, and loves it more therefore.\n\nHe does not rage, he pours another cider draft. His door\n\nIs open to the cool breeze, and he has my heart in whole.\n\n  \n\nWinter is a Christian. He is virginal and cold.\n\nI think he thinks the world and I will come to little good.\n\nBut still, he keeps good Christmas, as a decent Christian should,\n\nAnd he will never notice if he ever does grow old.\n\nHis are the silenced days between long lone abyss of night.\n\nWhat hope he has for warmth is faith in warmth beyond himself.\n\nHis skin and eyes are pale, for he has never had good health.\n\nAnd in my heart of hearts I fear he may be proven right.\n\nBut Autumn is a pagan, and before the winter comes\n\nWe'll go to the fair together. We will muse on easeful death.\n\nWe will work wild useless magic with a windowpane and breath.\n\nWe will walk the pathless sunset woods to hear the pheasants drum.\n\nWe'll taste the chill blue northers as they sweep the sky above.\n\nAnd he will be slightly holy, like a quiet household ghost.\n\nWith harvest charms, and mysteries, and the taste of apple-roast,\n\nAye, Autumn is a pagan, and it's Autumn who I love.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1701076-i-won-t-fear-the-sunlight.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1702496-eight-minutes-and-forty-six-seconds-on-june-twelfth-two-thousand-twenty.json"}}