Syderstone Autumn

For Sarah. Her favourite season.

 

The flowers are falling

Like drunken diners

And only the memory of swifts

Persists.

A slow warmth stills

The shortening days,

Burnishing

The blackberry swagger

And the glaucous baubles

Of the sloes.

Wind kindled

Rose hip embers

Singe the shivering birch

And light

The hawthorn lamps

At dusk.

Rooks rise,

Crackling like bonfires

From the sun-buttered stubble

As the plough peels

Open the earth,

Laid bare

To the stars.



 

October 2025


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