Simon P Walker

Autumn is an intimate scene,
The disrobing of nature, like a gentleman at the end of the evening,
Sheds his costume, littering the floor and rivers
With the remains of the party;
Tired coffee grounds and squeezed shreds of lemon,
Wrinkled olives and wilting salad
Browning apple and claret creeper lingering on the wall
The stain of spilt wine.
The earth smokes
In gathered heaps
Of leaves, smouldering in the late afternoon.
Two lovers huddle and ducks prod
Beneath the watery carpet of scattered foliage.
The pale sun caresses the land, teasing out
The soft sweep of the river, and glow of light
Refracted in a misty pall; blue on ochre.
The trees glow. The land glows. Walls stretch
Fetching ancient horizons in stone
Enfolding space and small boys, who fumble
Tumble over ball and each other, to a modest clamour
Of parental support, lining the touchline
As light fails.

This personal autumn,
This laying down of all that we have been, the unmasking
Of all that we amount to; the exposing
Of bare skeleton of trunk and branch; the reaching
Of naked, unfulfilled ambition; the gaping
Of vistas, once hidden behind eloquent foliage of bluff
And rank and symbol.
This us.
This now.
This we find appalling.
Not for us the quiet dignity of autumnal demise,
In time, appropriately, each tree in time with the other,
A commodious dance of colour and light-
Instead the festering disappointment and bitter resent,
Of falling short. And all that can be has been,
And all that was hoped for slips silently
Into the endless night.

The breathless chaos of limb and leaf ends
Weary bodies straggle home, coats are tightened
And faces set, again. Beyond night falls early
And the private season draws the curtains.

Simon Walker
7.11.2003