The Poetry of R.E. Slater: Oct 7, 2026

"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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Wednesday, October 7, 2026

R.E. Slater - An Autumn Day

An Autumn Day

by R.E. Slater

There is nothing so lovely as

happy breezes hurrying and scurrying

among the leaves and towering treetops.

Or hearing fat ground squirrels

scampering about with nut and acorn

digging in their wares underneath the

buzzing broken cadences and rhythms

of grasshoppers, crickets, and peepers.

O'erhead leafy bowers rustle and turn
spreading their golden hues and glows
in painted ambers, russets, and golds.

The autumn airs fill the churning woods

with dancing drops of burnished fire

fluttering down to become instant

homes for foraging fuzzy woolly bears

seeking winter warmth and shelter.

And I, resting from day's labor,

nestled within this spinning expanse,

hear again the ancient songs of youth.

Embraced within the enchanting spells

brimming my Northern wonderland

as waking dream unwilling slumber

content upon a day's warrant

renewed and enlivened before

the coming winter snows closing in.

R.E. Slater

October 7, 2026
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Fall, Leaves, Fall

by Emily Brontë

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;

Lengthen night and shorten day;

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow

Blossom where the rose should grow;

I shall sing when night's decay

Ushers in a drearier day.

Autumn

T. E. Hulme

A touch of cold in the Autumn night -

I walked abroad,

And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge

Like a red-faced farmer.

I did not stop to speak, but nodded,

And round about were the wistful stars

With white faces like town children.

October

by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,

Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;

Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,

Should waste them all.

THREE AUTUMN HAIKU

Matsuo Bashō

Autumn moonlight -
a worm digs silently
into the chestnut.

Yosa Buson

Light of the moon

moves westward, shadows of flowers

creep eastward.

Kobayashi Issa

Yellow autumn leaves
tumbling down...
a deer calls its mate.

A Note for an Autumn Day

Perhaps that is what autumn gives us each year: not merely color, but a reminder. The leaves become most brilliant just before they fall. The days grow precious because they shorten. What was green becomes gold, what was gold returns to earth, and what appears to be an ending quietly prepares the way for another beginning. For a little while, then, we walk beneath the trees. And pay attention.

R.E. Slater

October 7, 2026