A Poem for Michaelmas

Let slip past the friendly ghosts

of summer last and lost friends,

o sainted angel, o heavy halo-headed, lift

your binding sword and watch

at autumn’s gates. Old Scratch chafes

against his cyclical disgrace – pricked

by over-ripe field-fruit brambles, like

some vulgar bear by fury’s bees. Honey-

noted afternoons chase the frothed skirts

of misted mornings, and elder bedlam elderberry,

strained for syrup, soaks heavy and sweet,

casts off youthful sobriety. Indoors the copper kettle

scratches a sound like cold-in-the-throat, and without

a northerly wind skims the beech-branches, teasing

he will soon tickle them from leaf-frocks –

but not yet! Blackberries settle thorny-down

in hedgerow barracks, tucking themselves

into contemplation. Michaelmas is for settling

accounts.

+JMJ+

Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash