by Walt Garlington (October 2025)
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The cool autumn air is chasing out
The heat of summer; the creation gladly
Rests therein. Crickets fill the nighttime
With their gentle chirping. The fruits of the earth
Ripen, gathered in by man and beast alike.
In this ninth month of the year, in September,
On the ninth day – a mystical number,
Denoting the ranks of the angelic hosts –
A harvest of holiness was garnered
Gladly from the Church of the Western Lands:
Ciaran the wonderful monk of Ireland,
Who died at thirty-three, like his Master;
Wulfhild, loving mother of English nuns;
Omer, vanquisher of idolatry
In northern Gaul as a monk and bishop –
A trinity of saints, an image of God
Who lived within them, Three Persons yet One,
Golden souls adorning the bough of the Church
That will never be shaken and fall,
Unlike those perishable leaves of earthly trees.
The north wind blows upon them, a foretaste
Of winter and of death; but the Holy Ghost
Engenders life for eternity
In Paradise. There the gathered fruit,
Wulfhild, Omer, and Ciaran, bear fruit themselves –
The virtues whose beauty never fades –
Praying that one day the West will reap
Richly again, as the ancestors did.
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Walt Garlington was born and raised in that part of Dixieland called Louisiana. A chemical engineer by training, he has spent the last several years writing full-time. He has written essays and poems for The Hayride, New English Review, The Tenth Amendment Center, The Abbeville Institute, Reckonin’, Katehon, Geopolitica, and USA Really. He writes regularly at his own web site, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.
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