September

I love September. Apart from anything else, you can free yourself from the daily hope of a decent summer. It's curiously comforting - no hope being better than dashed hopes. (It's being an existentialist that does it - see my other blog )

The swallows are beginning to gather on the wires; the birds have begun singing again after the silence of late summer; the golden fields are full of Swiss Roll bales of hay. Here's a September poem for you:

Harvest

Sun streamed down, warming the earth.
The scythe was stone-sharp.
The year came round to this.

Breaking the icy ground
Scattering the seed
Chasing the crows
Praying for rain, then sun, then rain, then sun again
All had led to this.

Scythe-swinging
Corn falling
Sweat breaking
Stook gathering

A good year or a bad
Would depend on him today.