A dull damp day – though it is only August
This dawning morning’s woeful warning
Hints winter’s on its wild unwelcome way
As fluttering, five-point, flat-faced sheets
Softly shutter down on paths and streets.
The orange-coated council cleaners
Can try their grudging best to glean
Small heaps of pre-released leaves
That lie in tiny breeze-blown piles
Upon the close-cropped cream-brown park.
They’ve streamed from straining plane trees
Bent down now, kneeling mown-blade low
With summer’s sun-stocked glossy growth
That glumly groans beneath green gravity
Attracting burgeoning branch to grass.
The plane trees wait for Autumn winds
Relieving them of all the world-worn weight
That sultry summer stacked upon
Their stout, squat slumping shoulders
So they can take their rightful rest.
But speedily it’s soon September
And soon my brain will need that breath
Of frost-fresh air to clear the cobwebs
Of a summer’s sloth-strewn sleep
To start the school-term springtime-new.
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