Raking up Autumn Leaves by E. G. M. Grant ©
This one is chestnut.
Must have been wind dancing
Most of the day,
Leaping and gusting
All of the way
From the cricket field,
Where conkers, lying all around
Litter the ground,
Reminding me of my childhood days.
These are beech.
Possibly come from someone’s hedge,
Where cyclamen cower. Out at the edge
Of the village green.
Wandering here from where they’ve been
On a wayward breeze.
Or blown from Farmer Jones’s trees
At the back of Five Acre field.
This is an oak leaf.
Surely it comes from Cinderhill Wood?
By rights it should
Be back in the copse by the fence
Where the shade is dense in summer.
Yes, the only place it could be from.
In the spring, when it was nice and warm
This gave dappled shade
In the bluebell glade.
These are birch leaves.
Smooth and round,
Autumn browned.
In a blue cross sale
The tale of last years fashion,
Soon to be reduced to ashen
Nothingness.
2
In bonfire smoke.
These acer leaves are mixed with cherry
They glow as red as a holly berry.
Probably blown along Half Moon Lane
The sunken road where tree roots
Like twisted, tortured, varicose veins
In nooks and crannies
Accumulate leaves in autumn drifts
As they’ve always done since my childhood days.
These leaves are the lees of summer’s light
The last despairing dregs that cling to twigs
Dancing diabolical, desperate jigs
Wildly undisciplined
In the equinoctial wind.
And one last rose, high in the hedge
Marching to the sound of its own distant drummer
Desperately tries to recall Summer
Like Charlemagne to the Pass of Roncesvalles
With a silent trumpet of scarlet colour.