Give Me Give me a cool October morning meant for long pants and a sweatshirt… Give me a yard full of October leaves… Give me the steady sound of the leaf rake, the spring rake, the small-headed rake for those narrow spaces between stone and shrub… Give me the time to rake those leaves into a funeral pyre of the fallen… Give me a wooden match to strike and light this pyre into the incense of autumn… Give me the wisdom to know whether I’m burning summer or welcoming winter… Give me the leisure to look up and feel the final shade of unfallen leaves… Give me the mindfulness to thank them for their arrival, their being, how they would bejewel themselves with caught rain, and their leaving… Give me the patience not to begrudge their leaving, not to sigh when they inevitably let go to remind me to do the same… Give me that sensation of warm sweat that beckons me to doff the sweatshirt and remember summer… And when winter comes… Give me a woolen cap, warm gloves, dry boots, and strong back to shovel… Give me, too, a neighbor with a snowblower… Give me another neighbor who will ask into the blizzard if anyone wants a just baked brownie… Give me later a mug of cocoa or coffee or tea or perhaps a glass of Jameson… Give me a comfortable chair, my feet on the ottoman by the fire… Give me the crackle of that fire while I sit and stare and think… Give me a good book by that fire, let me gather its words and turn its leaves slowly… Give me the wind to buffet the shudders, sculpt the snow, and move my eyes from the word to the shadow… Give me the solitude of darkness… Give me the courage to hope into that darkness and dream of leaves… I will not, Mr. Thomas, rage against the dying of the light – not yet – not during this solstice season of cold and night, not during these days of slanting sun and branches remembering the life to come.
John Hopkins has been an English teacher for forty-two years. He was the New England Association of Teachers of English (NEATE) poet of the year in 2008. John’s poetry has appeared in Commonweal, Saint Anthony Messenger, The National Catholic Reporter, The Leaflet, Sr. Melannie Svoboda’s blog, “Sunflower Seeds,” and Father Timothy Joyce’s book Celtic Quest. For the past six years, John has been a Benedictine Oblate affiliated with Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham, Massachusetts. He loves to read, write letters, tramp the Blue Hills, and play pickleball with Kerry, his amazing wife, and mother of their wonderful children: Kate, Danny, and Brian. In February of 2021, John’s first book of poems, Celtic Nan, was published, and in February of 2023, his second book, Make My Heart a Pomegranate was published. You can reach John at brotherjohnnyhop@gmail.com.
Amethyst Review 