all things on earth point home in old October

What is this dream of time, this strange and bitter miracle of living?
Is it the wind that drives the leaves down bare paths fleeing?
Is it the storm-wild flight of furious days,
the storm-swift passing of the million faces,
all lost, forgotten, vanished as a dream?
Is it the wind that howls above the earth,
is it the wind that drives all things before its lash,
is it the wind that drives all men like dead ghosts fleeing?
Is it the one red leaf that strains there on the bough
and that for ever will be fleeing?
All things are lost and broken in the wind;
the dry leaves scamper down the path before us,
in their swift-winged dance of death the dead souls
flee along before us driven with rusty scuffle
before the fury of the demented wind.
And October has come again, has come again.

[Thomas Wolfe]