7 Meditations on Autumn

 I
 Sunrise is the best;  the hot pink hues
 Illumine crispy autumn mornings.
 The frost coats swathes of garden grass
 In rough hewn patches of fast fading white. 
 My wispy grey-white beard still fails
 To cover where  the surgically stretched scar
 Crosses my throat.  Autumn’s warnings. 

 II
 Today the rampant hedgerows
 Protecting  little birds through summertime
 Succumb to coughing, rasping trim 
 While I have strength sufficient still to prune. 
 Hungry sparrows soon consume
 Fat balls and suet cake in refilled
 Wild bird feeders dangling 
 Off the telephone pole.  It’s autumn
 Outside our kitchen window.
 

 III
 Tomorrow willow whips will fall 
 As secateurs  bite sharply through tough bark.
 Autumn planting in the boggy bit; pale 
 Cylinders translucent and stout bamboo stakes
 May keep them safe from grazing predators. 
 Bright rose hips catch the eye like rubies
 Strewn across a lawn in sparkling dew
 A bank of treasure offered up for winter. 

 IV
 No conflagration of the season
 Like Guy Fawkes fires, yearly planned,
 Is scheduled in this autumn of our lives.
 And nor can we prepare ourselves for a
 Michael Fish storm shaking all the apples down
 That isn’t meant to be.  
 Honking geese sweep by southwards
 Exclaiming as they chase their next
 Adventure. The Grey Lags may yet stop 
 Off in our field to rest a quiet afternoon. 

 V
 A pleasant task still haunts my autumn thoughts:
 What shall I diarise today, having written
 Already ten months of fond musings? 
 Reflecting that we falter too,  together,
 Running out of time and clinging tight.
 Stubborn tomatoes that won’t be ripe 
 Before they freeze.   But meanwhile,  life!
 Slowly, steadily, the hot tub
 Temperature rises in the cold enclosing dusk
 Until the smells of  softwood smoke
 Entice a soak beneath the stark 
 Star-spattered sky.
 Constellations far above our heads while
 The station twirls in space and other
 Satellites and planets twinkle like 
 Family,  beneath a shining Milky Way.
 

 VI
 The rites of one year’s passage in a village life; 
 To be noted and notated.   First snow on Killhope.
 Cobbles sorted out in Allendale Town square.
 The butcher shop is closed again, another
 Pub has shut for good.  Spirits oddly  high.
 It’s been, still is,  a huge, climactic year.  And too
 Sometimes a friendly comment, a point of view
 Will penetrate the autumn’s mists and fogs
 Of endless entries on this public  road of days
 
 And I will smile. 
 

 VII
 Getting on for seventy —Oh man! 
 That I had treasured
 The many leaves of spring
 Emerging like  green jewels after  rising sap
 As I value the last two russet wisps
 Clinging on to  autumn’s red bare branches.
 Going, not yet gone.