As usual I still have that ‘waiting for summer to happen’ feeling, then the first sweet smells of damp decay hit me, and I can’t deny it anymore. Here’s a poem I wrote a long time ago:

 

Game Bird in Autumn

 

Watch the rocking-fool gait

Of cock-pheasant; his heart is proud.

Feathers of permanent burnish,

Stained by the essence of Autumn,

Aeons ago, with the sunset.

 

They are shooting again,

Out there, in the skeleton woods.

 

I do not want to bite the bullet.

 

At night I hear owls call out to darkness

Over bones creaking in hollows.

 

©2011 Pamela Turton