more autumn

Autumn comes,
breathing grey mist through city streets;
he stamps in puddles
then laughs with sudden sunshine.

Last night the clocks changed in the UK, so we’re back on Greenwich Mean Time.

Although summer is well and truly over – or at least British Summer Time is – it’s amazing how much colour there is still in the gardens. (All the photos in this post were taken this weekend.)

But autumn has always been a bit like that – nondescript grey one minute, dazzlingly bright the next; then all blustery with needly-sharp rain; then soft and mellow again.

The lines that open this blog post are the opening lines of a very old poem – so old I don’t remember where and when I wrote it. It’s clearly a UK scene, though, and I suspect it dates from before I moved to Spain in the late Eighties.

Looking at the final lines, it may be a bit premature to post the whole thing as St Martin’s Day isn’t celebrated until November 11th.

Then again, Martinmas is also Old Hallowe’en and there were plenty of people out in the costumes this weekend, so maybe it’s topical enough.

Autumn comes,
breathing grey mist through city streets;
he stamps in puddles
then laughs with sudden sunshine.

Loki-like,
he snatches at the washing on the line
and grabs the flaming leaves from the staid trees
leaving them naked to the elements.

Jack Frost and he
are playmates, fellow artists, mischief-makers;
they seek out cracks in our defences, peep
through windows, leaving crystal finger-prints.

In kinder mood,
he spreads a royal carpet for our pleasure;
he daubs chrysanthemums in gardens
and decks the bushes with bright fruit.

At Martinmas
he clothes us in mellow sunshine one last time:
a cloak of summer memories
to keep us warm till spring.

Author: don't confuse the narrator

Exploring the boundary between writer and narrator through first person poetry, prose and opinion View all posts by don't confuse the narrator