Autumn Poem

National Poetry Day this year (1997) is Thursday 9th of October, so here is an appropriate poem to celebrate it.

In 1994, the year I wrote it, the month was very windy. Lots of knobbly twigs fell off the big oak trees in our garden and littered the lawn. I found a dead baby hedgehog in one of the flower beds. Unlike this year, it was damp enough in the mornings to festoon the spiders webs with drops of moisture. There were plenty of wasps still around and the squirrels had produced a litter of four earlier in the season.

On the way to work, driving alongside Hampstead Heath, I had seen a fox trotting through the undergrowth beside the road. It was quite unconcerned about the traffic.

You wouldn’t think from this poem that I lived London, in one of the biggest cities in the world. Sometimes when I’m in the garden at night, looking at the stars, it is easy to forget the miles of roads and houses and shops all around and imagine I’m back in the country of my childhood memories.

There is something about Autumn which makes me feel a little sad always.

October

Weep sweetly, autumn sky,

Upon the lazy hill

Where drunken wasps still sip

The last fruit's juice

And lurking sparrows preen.

Let summer's seedlings drink their fill

While bees hide in the hive

Around their queen

To warm their winter bed.

Weep sweetly autumn sky

The hedgehog child is dead.

Fold softly, autumn mist,

The sun hides in the hill

Where trembling diamonds hang

On spiders' webs

And spotted roses droop

As summer's petals fade and curl.

The snail creeps up the wall:

A silver loop

Betrays its hiding place.

Fold softly, autumn mist,

The squirrel child is lost.

Breathe deeply autumn wind,

The young fox runs ahead

And golden leaves chase round

The old cat's tail.

Bright magpie wipes her beak

Where oaken branches crown the hill.

Arthritic bones,

The shaken twiglets fall

To claim their winter rest.

Breathe deeply, autumn wind,

The dying year is red and sleep is best.

October 1994

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