What October Brings

All photos taken by Sherri Lantinga in Oct 2015
unless otherwise noted.

The exuberance of spring prompts even dull students to offer poetic metaphors (which soft-hearted teachers perhaps too easily forgive).  This essay, however, is not about spring. It is about October, my second-favorite month, and its quieter finery. 

Chuseok:
Mountain-side burial mounds fill forest clearings,
tended by families thankful for past generations.

Hangeul Day:  National flags brightly wave over silent schools for the Korean alphabet's
569th anniversary.  Strangely, no language is studied this day.
(note: Photo taken October 2014)

Golden fields of rice:
Brightly-dressed ajummas swish lethally-curved knives
and bind rice sheaves with long stems.

Harvester machines, like tiny Zambonis,
smoothly shear the stalks of rice, invisibly remove the tiny kernels
and neatly return the stems into the shorn fields.

Quiet beach-side roads harbor tarps of rice drying in the warm sun.
(Note: photo by Elisabeth Lantinga)

Plants & animals:  

Grasshoppers, mantises, and dragonflies roam grassy edges, frantic with unfinished fall lists; stinkbugs sneak inside sunny apartment windows, startling human hosts.

Female garden spiders reach massive proportions,
their tiny mates skittering along the edge of family webs
while the lady of the house munches dragonflies.

Purple slugs move imperceptibly across forest paths,
sometimes meeting to create future generations

Asters, mums, and roadside cosmos politely bloom their pastel shades.

Roses reawaken with a spate of drowsy blossoms,
too easily torn by fall's rough touch.

Morning glory vines, twining stealthily for months,
burst into view with seductive blooms.

The cherry trees, a double-season blessing,
offer colorful crunchings underfoot.
Teams of matching ajummas scratch up curbside piles with busy twig brooms.

Traditional fishing villages sport roadside lines
of drying fish and squid;
neat rows of cabbages and peppers promise many
fulfilling pots of kimchi.