October Song
Poem by Annie Woodford
Collage d’art textile automnal. via: Public Domain Pictures.
Soft brown leaves, soaked with rain, litter the ground.
The edge of the hurricane has just spun past,
leaving the sky dark these days before Halloween.
We go out to run as soon as the rain has lifted.
For my child, this is effortless, but my heart
sucks and sputters blood. I tell her ecstasy
comes only after you get tired and sweaty.
Then you think you can go on forever.
Annie writes poems about rural and Appalachian life. Her books include Peasant (Pulley Press, 2025) and Where You Come From Is Gone (Mercer University Press, 2022), and she has won the Weatherford Award for Best Books About Appalachia.
A left917 original · poem by Annie Woodford
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