Friday 29 August 2014

Months: September

The poems for March, April, May, June, July and August in this sequence were posted on 24 February 2014, 21 March, 20 April, 24 May, 20 June and 29 July.

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The hemisphere reclines, skittling the sun
Towards its winter wanness. A dawn bar
Of lemon light descends facades and dun
Windows erupt. Mercury dew on car

And hedge embodies the high flat sky where jet
Tracks stipple the cloth-thin blue. A transhumance
Begins, archaic and grim. Howling regret
The swifts have fled. Coal tits feed in a trance.

By afternoon an Indian warmth has built
And sea winds thresh the tamarisk. Inland,
Butterflies dither between the rattling quilt
Of sweet pea and violet scabious, japanned.

Fruits firm. Blackberries at the line side glow
Off-limits. The dusted bilberry is shy,
The glossy rosehip brash; glimmers the sloe;
The tree fruit though is hard and green, still dry.

Die-back sets in. Hibiscus loses bulk;   
Once more lost pots wink through the whiskery grass;
Moisture is lost – the ligamented hulk
Of bramble quivers its limbs under the brass

Harvest moon. Harvest home! Church bells call out
In short-lived homage, but the golden gleams
Of summer turn matt and autumn’s redoubt
Of plenty is mined by shivering dreams

Of starving villeins gleaning ice-hard tillage:
Against winter, men gather wood and knowledge.

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© September 2012