Tag: fall

Poem: Mayflower to Fall

close up of dry maple leaves on the ground
Photo by Anna Zhdanko on Pexels.com

As the sullen leaves begin to turn
my thoughts turn inward
like a deciduous tree’s essence.
This, the true end of the year,
is a time of reflection,
of lighting fires and long walks
where the hanging wood smoke evokes
tales of old ancestors.

Brutus is here from that long trail from Troy;
so too Hengist and Horsa of the Jutes,
more noble than they knew.
I leave aside the Conqueror, for his path
of destruction I can still sense in this old land.

Here too, in the reds, browns and golds
under my feet, lies the promise of spring,
the new beginnings laid down years before.
For from here sailed the Mayflower,
leaving behind a corrupted world.
I sense their desire for truth, to get
back to basics, the continuity stretching
back to the garden, where my clumsy feet
search out a route straight to spring.

But in the new land
where the Mayflower spilled its seed,
how is the fall this year
and what kind of spring will it be?

copyright Francis Barker 2019

Poem: Crows

birds black crow
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The crows are gathering,
swooping with impunity.
They joust amongst themselves, 
invirtuous caws signalling
our entry into autumn
when trumpets may blow
some strange advent in the sky.
They seem happy, as if
Imperial Rome had fallen again,
a feast to be had. Fast
and feast are opposites – yet
so nearly the same

copyright Francis Barker 2019

Poem: ‘The Return’

photo of person walking near orange leafed trees
Photo by KIM DAE JEUNG on Pexels.com

She was sat
on the old porch, a piece
of me I’d left
behind
in some spring
long ago. I knew it
in an instant, as
soon as she looked up—
our minds dovetailing as if
nothing had happened
in those draining,
intervening years. A part
of me wanted
to leave,
to move on and deny
what my heart was insisting, but
the spark was still there,
some sweet, indefinable
thing.

She tapped
the space beside her and
I sat down
on the creaking pinewood. The air was
still,
a low September sun
buttering the track
in front of us
and the turning trees
all around us
and the pale skin
of her arms, her legs,
and that gentle,
dappled face.

“Do you remember
when we were spring?”

I nodded, watching
her lips break
into that dimpled smile. In
her eyes I saw again
the boats
and the blossom,
like promises, journeys
only taken in our minds

poem © copyright Francis Barker 2012

Poem ‘October’

English: Pumpkins
English: Pumpkins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

October comes and suddenly
there’s too much change.
Enough already with trees going bare,

without having to alter clocks
to appease the North
which might not even care.

While some see beauty in decay,
all I find is a reckoning, revenge
in Hallowe’en’s red-eyed stare,

where we fare no better than pigs
fattened and slaughtered,
sentenced for nothing

by callous clowns in wigs.
So I will kick through the leaves,
as is the custom

in my search for a soul,
or a silver-lining in death,
wrapped up like a sausage

against the first icy blast
which blows away all joy
and steals the breath.

© copyright David F. Barker 2012
*First published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, Night Publishing, available at amazon.

Poem ‘Mrs Wright’

Holland Cemetery: A rural cemetery in northeas...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mrs Wright

We approached her, standing stiffly
outside her cottage on the corner,
while she tended those remaining roses.

The sun was in his fall
with Michaelmas giving way to cooler winds.
She turned with some difficulty,

but still greeted us with a bespectacled smile.
She always had time, especially for me
and her roses, her world seeming slow

and certain, just like the green bus
we caught that hour on the bridge.
By the time we got back,

tired and ladened with groceries,
the sun was still out, sinking intensely
over the evergreen cemetery.

We saw no sign of the ambulance,
or the policeman’s bicycle.
Not even her son’s hastily parked car.

There was only a flutter
in the curtains across the road
as we struggled on by.

Such had been her last afternoon
upon which we had paused.
We hurried home having no idea,

doing up our light coats
in the stiffening breeze.

poem © copyright df barker 2012, first published in poetry collection ‘Anonymous Lines’, available digitally at amazon.co.uk and amazon.com (latter for the book itself).