Autumn

We rake wet leaves to find paths lost beneath,
put tools away
and deadhead roses, quietly in grief.
As autumn’s wind now shakes the empty trees,
we’d kill to have just one more summer day,
and dread the coming freeze
for, in the breeze, we feel cruel winter’s hand
come creeping up to suffocate the land.

The bumblebees must take their final flight,
on thinning wings,
to certain death now half the day is night;
now green has turned to brown and brown to mud.
This season takes its toll on living things,
feeds England’s fields with blood
and, as that life’s extinguished, all the fear
and pain is silenced, ready for next year.

Mayflies count in hours, sparrows count in days;
by now I know
for each tomorrow, I’ve had two yesterdays.
Now haunted by the things I’ve left unsaid
and all the places that I’ll never go,
I sweep away the dead
and close myself to fear and love and pain;
I settle in to wait for your spring rain.