Winter. Not long gone 4 pm yet, all is dark. Wind cuts like a knife. People hurry, collars turned up against the icey blast.
Home beccons. Central heating warms, hot drinks revive, but what can unfreeze the shrivelled soul inside?
A wooded path
Beauty in bleakness
Fallen leaves stirred by a chill winter’s breeze.
Cold cuts like a knife
Exilirating to be alive
Sunlight on a late November day,
Transitory beauty, all will pass away
Dark thoughts on a bright day. The sun warms my face, brightness mingles with darkness on this spring morning.
Birds sing gladdening my heart but, underneath the sorrow remains.
A child’s voice full of joy calling “mummy, mummy”. My mood lightens, there is love and innocence in this world of tears.
Here in London’s Crystal Palace autumn lingers. The perfume from fallen leaves scents the air. How strange that people spend vast amounts on expensive scents when nature produces perfumes more fragrant than anything man is capable of producing.
Autumn is melancholy and beauty inextricably interwoven. The gorgeous smells emanating from the newly fallen leaves make me feel good to be alive. Yet it is, at the same time the dying of the year, the interlude between life giving summer with it’s blooming roses and winter which will, inevitably clasp us to her icey bosom. Yet life continues far beneath winter’s frosty grip and, come the spring we will be delighted by birds building their nests, roses budding and the sound of lawn mowers as the powerful aroma of newly mown grass scents the air. The great cycle, turn and turn again. We are part of something beautiful and a little mysterious.
Autumn
Walking in the park something smooth and round under my feet. I long to explore like the small boy I once was, to bend down and pick it up. What will people think, A strange middle-aged man bending over in a park full of autumn? The child thirsting for discovery contends with the staid adult who stands on ceremony. The child wins. I bend retrieving the smooth round conker. No not quite smooth but beautiful in it’s imperfection, soft in my hands. Should I take it home to harden in the dark like the small boy I once was?
Thoughts of my grandfather. Walking in the woods full of autumn. Us two together gathering nature’s fallen fruit. Opening acorns my blind hands feeling the kernel inside. Part of something I didn’t then understand.
The conker slips from my hands. I bend trying to retrieve the fallen prize. So many conkers, impossible to know which one it is.
I return home and play rough and tumble with my dog. His tail wags furiously no sad thoughts fill his head.
You come to me your golden gown floating in the breeze. For a while we dally in the woods rich with the scent of the dying year. Beautiful in your approaching death, golden tresses fall, our mouths meet hungrily for soon you must go. A new stern mistress will I have dressed in snow and ice.
The sun has chased the rain away here in Crystal Palace although he is no doubt waiting in the wings for an opportunity to pounce again.
Autumn has come early. The ground is strewn with leaves and the air is perfumed with the scent of rich earth. Damp ground and newly fallen leaves mingle to delight the senses.
I love autumn. A gentle sun combined with the sound of leaves crunching underfoot, who could ask for more? Autumn reminds me of the cyclical nature of time. The growth of spring and summer is superceeded by the slow retreat into death of autumn which culminates in winter. The dying of the year is exquisetly beautiful, melancholy intimately mingled with profound beauty, perhaps symbolic of life itself.
My novel in progress, Samantha tells the story of a young girl forced into prostitution by her brutal pimp Barry and is set against the backdrop of Liverpool. The city of Liverpool has a special place in my affections as I was born and spent my formative years there.
Many of the places mentioned in Samantha exist which does, I believe lend authenticity to the story. Sam’s first proper date with Peter, the man with whom she is falling in love begins in the Walled Garden a tranquil spot situated in Woolton Woods. The woods are located in the village of Woolton (Woolton forms one of Liverpool’s suburbs). It is autumn and the peace and tranquillity of the autumnal woods contrast sharply with Sam’s tortured mental state. She finds solace in the beauties of the Walled Garden and in the company of Peter, she is, however acutely conscious of her life as a prostitute which Sam conceals from Peter.
The lovely woods and garden seem worlds away from Sam’s encounter during the early hours of Saturday morning with Nick a man whom she is forced to have sex with by Barry. Beauty and ugliness exist side by side but while Peter can see only the beauties of the autum woods and his girlfriend, Sam, on the other hand knows only to well that corruption and beauty can exist (often unperceived) side by side.
For my online novel, Samantha please visit https://newauthoronline.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/samantha-part-10/. Part 10 links back to previous chapters.
For information on Woolton Woods and the Walled Garden please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolton_Woods_and_Camphill.
K Morris - Poet 