Month of Wine

by Brett Rutherford

Since the joys of wine

are denied me, I did not think

of October as a month brim full

of alcohol, a Bacchanalia.

But then one year,

out Elsdon way in old

Northumberland,

in memory of the Baron

of my name, I heard offered

"a tankard of October."

Was Bradbury here,

I wondered? Did Shelley's

breath of autumn's being

come this far north?

No, this describes

the best and strongest

of ales, October-brewed.

In Queen Anne's day

a Tory club met secretly

in Parliament's shadow,

to drink October Ale

and hurl insults

at the hated Whigs.

Neutral the stern name

October, from Rome,

eighth calendar month,

prefix to sides, legs, and years

(-gon, -pus, -genarian),

but ask the Dutch what time

of year it was in olden times

and they say Wynmaand,

"the wine month." In

Chaucer's day it was still

known as Winmonath,

to the Jacobins in Paris,

Vendémiaire (the time

of vintage). So add I must

to every fall, a demitasse,

if not a tankard,

of October Ale.

Let the year tip tipsy

till fall-on-your-face

winter seizes all.