The sound of a blackbird
By me heard
As I savour Autumn’s scent,
After a day spent
In old London Town.
A myriad of leaves have fallen down
Today
(and trees too they say),
But it is all to soon
For ‘Tis only June …
—
(Note: This poem was prompted by my walk home from work, on 6 June. The evening felt Autumnal, despite it being early June).
Leaves swish, like water
As I walk through
Them to reach the park. ‘Tis true
Autumn is still here,
Yet, I fear that winter will give no quarter,
For each season does murder it’s daughter,
Who dies not but rather sleeps
And creeps
Forth to softly kill
Her father who will
Rise once more.
As it was before
So it will remain. The perpetual cycle
Of the seasons, a vital order does bring.
Spring
Follows winter stern.
Buds return
And soon,
Come summer, flowers will bloom.
Autumn imperceptibly doth replace
Summer’s flushed face,
While the Fall’s slow decay
Whispers “winter is on his way”.
Yesterday evening, I sat in my living room leafing through “The New Oxford Book of English Verse”. Pausing at Keats, I read several of his poems, the last one among them being “Autumn”. “Autumn” is one of those poems which refreshes the jaded soul and causes the reader to gasp in wonder at the sheer beauty of the poet’s creation.
Having read Keats, I was minded to reproduce “Autumn” on this site. However “Autumn” is well known and rather than quote a much loved and well known poem, I have chosen instead to share Ernest Christopher Dowson’s poem, “Autumnal”:
“PALE amber sunlight falls across
The reddening October trees,
That hardly sway before a breeze
As soft as summer: summer’s loss
Seems little, dear! on days like these!
Let misty autumn be our part!
The twilight of the year is sweet:
Where shadow and the darkness meet
Our love, a twilight of the heart
Eludes a little time’s deceit.
Are we not better and at home
In dreamful Autumn, we who deem
No harvest joy is worth a dream?
A little while and night shall come,
A little while, then, let us dream.
Beyond the pearled horizons lie
Winter and night: awaiting these
We garner this poor hour of ease,
Until love turn from us and die
Beneath the drear November trees”.
Sunlight slants through branches.
The ethereal girl dances
As the poet romances
Her
Out of the summer air.
The trill
Of an evening blackbird
Is heard.
Then without a word
She is gone,
Though in his heart she lives on.
Perchance
She will dance
Once more
When Autumn winds roar,
And clothed in russet gown
We will lie down
And forever, sleep
what am I to do with you?
You came into the flat on my shoe.
Autumn is at an end.
Into the bin you must descend.
Green leaves must go
Before winter snow
Blankets the land
And trees stand,
Their branches bare
In the frost laden air.
Listening to commercial radio
The warblers come and go.
Photogenic girls fill my brain
With the same
Or similar sound.
Autumn leaves strew the ground.
I reach for the off switch.
Oh what bliss!
In the garden a bird calls.
Leaves whirl and fall
And the warbling is lost, beyond recall.
As I walked through the trees
a soft breeze
Stirred the fallen leaves.
A girl was there
with golden hair.
Light as a feather she flew
into mine arms true.
The scent of the forest she wore.
Her clothes blended with the woodland’s russet floor.
“I can not stay
for my father, winter is on his way”,
she did say.
The sky turned grey
and winter did bay
As a ravenous wolf
who would the earth engulf.
I felt her father’s icey hand
laid firm upon the land.
His command
is law.
I must see his daughter no more.
But winter must sleep
And out his children will creep.
The lover I adore
I will see her once more!
A further poem in honour of Autumn. “Autumn Rain” can be found in “Dalliance: A Collection Of Poetry And Prose”, (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dalliance-collection-poetry-prose-Morris-ebook/dp/B00QQVJC7E or http://www.amazon.com/Dalliance-collection-poetry-prose-Morris-ebook/dp/B00QQVJC7E).
Autumn Rain
Rain you are lonely, crying outside in the darkness.
A few sad fireworks fizzle and die.
Me, sitting alone on my sofa. Rain, is it you who are lonely, or I?
An autumn breeze
Russles ancient trees.
Scented leaves whirl
Fragrant as the girl
Who’s hair flows
As the wind blows.
bare arms reaching for the sky
Desirous to fly
With the birds
Who’s song is on this evening heard.
Sounds painful to hear.
The dying year.
Leaves turn from green to brown.
His growing frown.
Death patiently waits,
As time, with gnarled fingers reaches for the gate.
K Morris - Poet 