Autumn Weft

Late in August warm air sunk to the ground, cooler air dropped to our shoulders.

We had felt the thermal transfer - thought of skin softly clothed, cinnamon and blackberries bubbling under pastry. 

We felt hot work easing, the loss of hot lazing. 

Rich greens remain, and summer bright blooms.

Nasturtiums flare up, like small fires. 

We smelt tree bark, apple skin, damped wood smoke.

Peripheral autumn.

But no season just becomes. 

It is a weaving.

(Spring in every bud, summer in every petal, autumn in every seed, winter in every root, or however you wish to follow the thread.)

In the hedge two spiders tango on a web - a match, or a meal for one?

Berries drop into our cache: sloe, hip, haw, black: a heap of jewels.

Harvest secured, we snuck through tall maize, to feel the leaves grab, and drop rain down our backs.

We were racing, laughing, till we saw the bird sat: injured, by a jaw-snap.

Too injured for us to mend, and fright would kill as sure as anything.

Here it was perched in green sanctuary, calm and shocked and between worlds.

This too, a weaving.

Back in open field, for the second time I, clumsy human, arms full of fruit, disturb Dog’s befriending of a young fox. Russet-red, sun-sleepy, it delays its stir as long as it dares.

Dog wags her tail at the hole in the hedge, looks to us.

I can only shrug, promise to return.

We will be stocking up, fruit first, then acorns. 

Making our histories of these moments.