Barely Blue

It’s four in the afternoon...
the end of October. The soft-shoe
shuffle of autumn rustles past me –
ensconced in the yellow, half-light
of the shed...as yellow as your hair,
and do you still wear that rose?

Bulbs, in sacking, clamour to be dug
with that earthy, musty odour of brown.

An errant shower, tap-dances on the roof –
its departure leaves the sky the bluest
of things blue; Cohen’s ‘Famous Blue
Raincoat’, on my mind.

I’m writing you now, just to see
if you’re OK. Here, a sense of betrayal
fugs the air...even so a kind of rusty richness
pervades...the last of the Red Hot Pokers –
summer’s final torch...

Virginia creepers – a blaze of bronze
against a wall of oak; dig my hand
into a crumpled paper bag
of crusted corms, and pray to god

snowdrops will drift in, by and by,
like foam on a high spring tide;
haphazardly thrown – to make home
wheresoever they land.

Sodden vine leaves clog the rake –
smoke from the bonfire, barely blue...
hangs low; suits my mood;

Black Eyed Susans – denuded,
brown stems shudder in dread at the stir
of the wind – under its breath
murmurs an imminent threat of frost.

These are misty, Michaelmas days
shrouded in the haze; only phantoms
remain of familiar shapes...faces

apples on gnarled and twisted elbows
hang on to the bitter end...prey
to marauding hornets and wasps – tipsy ,
as I, with too much home-grown cider.

Resentment rears its ugly head, and yet,
surely all things must end, to begin again,
in this grand scheme of things –
makes an oak, a daisy...or love?