October. The calendar turns once more and all thoughts of summer are put aside. A time for preparing for the coming winter and enjoying the coolness of autumn with all the color of the changing leaves and the softer light. A time for reflection on a year that has went by all too quickly.
The woodcut shown here is one made for the month of October in Edmund Spenser’s 1579 work, The Shepheardes Calender, which was a collection of 12 pastoral poems depicting the month-by-month life of a shepherd of that time. I would include a few lines but, quite honestly, I struggle to get through any of Spenser’s archaic verse and don’t wish that on anyone on a Saturday morning. I do like the woodcut, however.
Here’s a little easier to absorb interpretation of the month. It’s hard to be;lieve it has been 30 years since the album October was released by U2. Here’s the mood piece that serves as the title track for this album.
Redtree Times 