Yesterday’s Ode to Thanksgiving is perhaps a more proper ode (even though it starts off angry and critical) in that it directly addresses Autumn, and focuses narrowly on a single autumnal event: Thanksgiving.
This Ode to Autumn, on the other hand, is really only an ode because I say so in the title. Poet’s prerogative.
Here’s how the rest of the Poetry Sisters met the challenge of writing an Ode to Autumn:
Tricia @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
Tanita @ {fiction, instead of lies}
Sara @ Read Write Believe
Laura @ Laura Purdie Salas
Liz @ Liz Garton Scanlon
Kelly @ Kelly Ramsdell
Andi @ A Wrung Sponge
In December, we’ll be writing poems that feature bells. Join us! Ruth has this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town. Join us!
A(nother) Year of Reading 
Beautiful! 🌸
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Lovely, Mary Lee! The last stanza “In December/Autumn is largely forgotten” felt particularly poignant.
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This strikes me again as just so perfectly formed, where the crafting is obvious, where you pick it up and turn it this way and that to admire how it catches the light on all sides. I also appreciate your angry ode, and how the cranberry jello salad (which I would not be inclined to actually eat) makes it all poignantly delicious.
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Oh, lovely! I very much agree that December gets lost in the mix, but I especially love how in September it’s just hidden! It’s there, but boy is it sometimes hard to detect…
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I think you’ve captured each month of autumn perfectly, Mary Lee. I especially love “In September Autumn hides in heat waves.”
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Oh, those hickory and acorn hints and bare bones of trees get me. Love the layers of meaning in each. Poems with bells, eh? That sounds fun!
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I love how your poem progresses, forcing us to think and re-think autumn. It IS all these things, one at a time, and if we slow down to look (as you have) we can absorb it all. I always admire how deeply structured your work is, Mary Lee, how beautifully thought out and considered, line by line.
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Blessings for your autumn, Mary Lee, the expectation feels like one might recite it from one of those schoolbooks of long ago, telling us the rules. It’s so beautifully done! The afterword (addendum?) is that the climate is messing us up. We are nearly 70, here again, today, no moisture, September in November!
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I love the “flaring, flaming, blazing, fading.” Such powerful verbs and the alliteration is wonderful.
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Lovely, “Autumn is primarily pigment” beautifully phrased! I enjoyed this walk through Autumns months!
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I am still a little confounded that America doesn’t celebrate seasons by calendar months. Autumn for us is March, April, May. The three complete months.
I see your tree bones. Not in autumn, but in drought. Sometimes during drought, gums drop huge branches – that shatter like broken bones on the ground.
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Mary Lee, two odes in two days-wonderful. Autumn strikes a pose through each month in your lovely poem. You provide such strong verb descriptions of each month: hides, gives, reveals, forgotten ( the later thought is a truth in itself. December stages the holiday season and autumn seems to be at rest. I would love to share this poem in my gallery so I will tuck it in the first edition (Poetry Friday edition), with some other beautiful odes with your permission.
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Sure, Carol! I’d be honored!
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Thank you, Mary Lee.
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This is just beautiful, and that last line perfect – the cycling of the seasons. I have loved dipping into so many odes this week.
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Thank you for sharing the autumn poem! I look forward to your Bells poems. One of my favorite poems is from Edgar Allan Poe: The Bells.
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