POETRY

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Here's a selection of my poems for SEPTEMBER

I update this website at the start of each month with a fresh selection of my poetry.

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	SEPTEMBER GOLD ( For Lynn) September brings the year its crop of gold : the stubble fields lie golden in late sun now wheat’s been reaped to store for Winter’s cold. The trees in bronze and yellow-gold are strung with leaves that spiral down carpeting plots; here men tend pumpkins, nurture yellow gourds — fruit, on a bed of straw is left to squat until the Harvest moon can’t be ignored. More gold can be found in cosmos flowers — their hearts of gold still welcoming late bees. So magnificent these late sunflowers that always mark the Summer’s end for me. September birthdays truly are the best with beauty and such golden days are blessed.

	SUNFLOWER Down at the pub, the rumours had soon spread : our local farmer’s selling off his land. When goat-man left and pheasant farm shut down, we realised there was truth in what was said. Soon, other tenants left their grazing land — moved horses on, their meadows left to weeds, rusty with ragwort, pastures overgrown — a change the roaming deer can’t understand. Birds leave the hedgerows, rabbits on the run as men and their machines rip up the land; at the site entrance they erect a sign : Building Communities For Everyone… But not for hawthorn, fox, orchid or deer — those residents have gone, their fields stripped bare. On this sterile plane earth’s heaped in piles, nothing’s left alive on the levels here. Pipes and bricks arrive all Summer long but, while the men were busy on the site, Nature crept back to green those heaps of soil and, on the highest, planted something strong. Unnoticed, this plant grew more each day till giant golden face turned to the sun. This was Nature’s turn, a defiant sign — two fingers to those stealing land away. This poem is included in my new collection, The Warfield Poems.

	SIGN OF THE TIMES That green fuse that drove the flower is fading — torrential rain and thunder mark the change — friction, on the borders between seasons, with Summer’s power coming to an end. Even though the sun returns to warm us, already some green trees are showing gold; berries start to ripen in the hedgerows and days count down on cuckoo pint’s red beads. Stubble fields are ploughed, last poppies waning, on cottage wall the last flush of the rose; Summer’s birds are gathering to leave us — how is it that they know when seasons change?

	FOXES (For Amber) For those who look, the signs are there: that tiny gap made in the hedge, the flattened trail across long grass, a tunnel through a bramble patch. And walking fields and country lanes the foxes' routes are plain to see: tufts of red fur caught in a fence — a scat left to mark territory. Driving you home with your guitar to Ascot, down those country roads through summer twilight, winter dark — in fox life it was all the same… We'd hope to see at least one fox in those five miles, door to door, our record: an amazing five, one sultry evening in July. Green eyes might flash out from a hedge — dazzled by headlights from our car, or, taking refuge in a ditch, a brush would wave a quick “goodbye.” And then there were the crazy kind who'd try to face the traffic down — stock-still on the centre line as they played “chicken” with the cars. Driving the motorway at night I've watched charmed foxes cross the road and, on a summer afternoon, one walked straight passed me down our drive. Most brazen fox? On Goldhawk Road — brought London traffic to a stop; tribal memory drives him on — seeks countryside in Shepherds Bush.

	THE LAST TIME Then, every year it was the same, we'd wait to watch the geese return. Just as the sun began to set, we'd hear them from our cottage door, honking and calling as they passed. Somehow they knew when to arrive… with harvest in and combine gone, in twos and threes, then Vs and skeins they'd circle round fresh stubbled field that filled the top of Cabbage Hill — dark silhouettes against red sky, landing in tens beyond Long Copse. Their congress lasted for a week with trips to feeding grounds each day and loud reunions at night. Then they were gone, leaving the hill as suddenly as when they came, to over-winter miles away. When, late last year, the land was sold, men with hard hats and plans moved in, soon diggers made the good earth fly. “Creating new communities — A family countryside retreat”… But not a place to welcome geese.

	BRAMLEY This old, mossed, Bramley apple tree, planted in Victorian times, has served our kitchen very well — apples for savouries, puddings and pies. Aged tree, a garden feature still, became safe harbour for young kids as castle and as pirate ship — a branch bears scars where rope swing gripped. Beneath that branch, an antique plough, restored, reminder of the past; where chickens pecked long years ago, first snowdrops now surround gnarled bark. Months later, apple blossom falls — confetti on a new mown lawn. Next bluetits hunt among the leaves for food to feed their hungry brood. When fledglings fly, June apples drop — the tree reducing heavy crop — but there will be another fall when pecking starlings come to call. The sloping trunk gives tree its shape, a magnet for our running cat who, at full tilt, bounds up the trunk to finish on the top most branch. Windfalls attract the drunken wasps — those harbingers of harvest time; as curling leaves begin to fall apples are gathered, boxed and stored. The evenings cool as they draw in, reaching the cusp of season’s change — the old tree’s branches reach for sky, caught in its arms, bright Harvest moon.

	WINDFALLS In this, the Autumn of her life, windfalls. Mossed tree — planted to mark her birth — has grown too tall, with fruit too high to reach. Each day she waits for wind and sun to bring her windfalls down. And life has always been like this — spent tending to the fallen fruit : both parents, husband, then her son had tumbled from the family tree, been rescued after falling low like windfalls — bruised but whole.

	SOON As evenings shorten, light's orange glow glints from the eyes of tall buildings. Swallows gather, dark beads restrung — looped above lanes, their twitterings reproach the setting sun. We will go soon, We will go soon... And I, whose infancy was sun and flowers, watch like a child surprised by adult grief, confused by sudden tears — left with enduring sadness.