Autumn Falling

I felt the first falling

Of autumn this morning.

The air's still mild,

But the wind's become wild

And capricious - stirring the trees

Into roaring seas;

Overwhelming waves of foliage.

The edges of sycamore leaves

Are fringed with mellow yellow rust;

Haws, like drops of spilt blood,

Have reached their deepest wounded red;

And sloes have matured to the colour of old bruises.

Spindle berries, shockingly pink,

Look lurid and licentious in the mild-mannered hedgerow -

Waiting to reveal their outrageous orange innards.

One solitary swallow, now,

Skims low over the grassland -

Trying to unmake a summer?

Late-leaver, last-chancer,

Looking lost in the vacant pasture,

Whilst an empty white bucket

Rolls around the field in circles

Like a plastic sheepdog

Without a flock

Driven by the incessant whistling of its master –

The wind.

I shelter by the broken stones of an old barn:

There amongst the rural ruins

Is the perfect place

To imagine summer slowly seeping away

And listen to the blowing-in of autumn.