I was exercising in the living room recently and meant to type the album October by U2 in the search box in YouTube Music, but accidentally typed “October ear . . .”

. . . Jack Kerouac’s “October in the Railroad Earth” came up. I enjoyed hearing the Beat poet and novelist read the poem with Steve Allen playing jazz piano in the background.

And back to U2 . . .

October is one of my favorite albums by U2, and I always play it when the calendar turns from September to October.

I love the lyrics to the song “October.”

“October and the trees are stripped bare
Of all they wear.
What do I care?

October and kingdoms rise
And kingdoms fall
But you go on
And on.”

And the song “Rejoice” has a line that I replay in my head whenever the world seems like an impossible place to inhabit.

“And what am I to do?
Just tell me what am I supposed to say?
I can’t change the world
But I can change the world in me.”

The October light is spectacular in upstate New York, and I am trying to appreciate autumn before the big freeze sets in.

I’ll close with one of my October-themed poems.

“Stadium Nights”

Friday nights in central New York,
crumpling leaves of bursting gold
and breathing in the October cold
as a pigskin spirals tight
and shadows collide under stadium lights.

Small town pride surges like an offensive line,
bursting open a gaping hole,
springing the halfback
en route to the chalk-lined goal.
And fathers perched in the stands
holler until hoarse and reminisce
about the glory days, when they wore the jerseys—
bloodied and mud-caked—
and walked with shoulders back,
receiving cheers as Friday night gladiators.

Under the bleachers, first-time kisses
are punctuated with quivers and giggles
in between swigs of peppermint schnapps.
Holding hands means everything,
and halftime comes far too quick.
The curfew looms as the scoreboard clock winds down.
Just five more minutes you say,
then head home grudgingly.

Previously published in Dreaming of Lemon Trees: Selected Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2019) by Francis DiClemente.