A Letter in October by Ted Kooser

Kooser's poem plays lovingly with light, darkness, reflections, time, nature, and art. Four stanzas of 6 lines each, 36 lines. Unrhymed, and rhythmically mostly enjambed tetrameters. We are in October, and the speaker is up at dawn, usually, reflecting on the morning. His image too reflects in the window pane since "dawn comes later and later now." His field of vision dwindles rapidly--he once enjoyed early morning nature scenes, but now can see no more than his own reflection in the window pane beyond which is the darkness of night. Light and dark are not absolutes, but rather form a continuum to which the speaker is witness, and a participant. His face appears "pale and odd, / startled by time." And now that it is fall (the autumn of life), the speaker is forced to look inwards (reflect) instead of look out at nature. The poem uses simple language to describe natural scenes that seem imbued with the sparkle and awe of magical realism; and maps the contours of the speaker's life within the framework of the four ages (seasons) of man. We sense the genuineness of the speaker's discovery, its freshness, while at the same time recognize the signs of his dawning awareness of his own mortality.