It's becoming a little bit of a ritual for me to reacquaint myself with the appropriate segment of John Clare's The Shepherd's Calendar as the month turns. Here he is beginning October: Nature now spreads around in dreary hue / A pall to cover all that summer knew. We don't get a pall exactly in this Far Place because we don't get any real change of season, which suits me fine just in case you thought I was getting nostalgic. But there are other subtle transitions as the year ages and, inevitably, one ages with it. Sometimes it's a pall of the spirit that descends - not to be taken lightly.
But poor mad Clare continues by noting there are always pleasing objects to delay us as we journey, and, of course, picks out a fair few for us to passively observe as the great poem continues. If this were all that poetry ever did, teach us to look, it would be enough. And Clare's harvest renders more than plenty.
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