November

NOVEMBER

The grass lies easy on the hillsides, spreading
Over swells and hollows like a length of emerald satin.
Trees cluster in folds of the landscape
Like gossiping guests at a cocktail party.
Dark hedges throw casual arms around hillsides,
Lift up a bracken-topped mound candled
With infant holly and be-witched birch.
Hawthorn berries sodden with rain are
Marooned in their cradle of twigs.
A huddle of blackthorn stretches a winter filigree
Against a pigeon-grey sky. Lane-side hedges
Sport a tawny crew-cut for winter.
Beneath the old oak's convoluted branches,
Clad in their velvet jackets of green,
Ribbons of water serpentine downhill,
Cascade off banks, chase sodden leaves into ditches,
As the gale bowls more, like wet confetti,
Down the lane. A caul of rain drifts up the valley,
Like a lace curtain at a cottage window.
Only the sulphur-yellow of the larches
Brighten in our headlights.

J.C. 2009


© J.C. If you wish to use this poem or any of my blog postings or photographs, please ask first.