Autumn by Jennie Hart

Autumn’s progress resembles the flow of our own years

And is sometimes a time of melancholy,

Of moving on from carefree summer days to tears

At loss of light and summer moods.

 

Musty scents and earthy smells occupy the autumn air,

Sometimes still warm and dank but often cooled

By breezes, blowing dried curled leaves to places where

They might gather and pile, or scatter again, according to the day.

 

Burnished leaves in red and amber, brown and gold, hang

Suspended on fine stalks from a framework of swaying branches,

Enhanced by a ripple of white clouds in a day-glo sky

Or darkened and made gloomy by angry cumulonimbus.

 

Bright trunks of silver birch stand tall, their glinting golden foliage

Displaying its autumn wardrobe with stately pride.

Fruiting hawthorns with their shiny haws and wild roses with fat red hips

Decorate hedges along green verges no longer parched to the colour of straw

 

In our homes we give ourselves permission to turn on central heating

Bring out our fleece pyjamas and soft slippers.

Curtains are drawn and blinds pulled down to ward off the chill of evening,

And we move towards the changing of the clocks now summertime is gone