October / John Reed

October

Langorous with heavy haze
Sinks the scarlet sun.  A drowsy hush
Hangs above the city ways,
And stills their rush.

Smoky mist of forest fires
Greyly palls the distance.  Pines long dead
Smoulder deep like dead desires —
Their gaunt arms spread.

Golden-red the honeyed moon,
Swarmed about with golden bees, hangs low,
Climbing to her silver noon
With blood-like glow —

Weirdly floats the echo down,
Tom-toms faintly throbbing far away,
Through the haze from Chinatown
Across the bay . . .

~~
John Reed (1887-1920),  1906
from Tamberlaine, and other verses, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

John Reed biography