FIRST SIGNS
The last few days autumn has come with sweeping winds and towering skies. Cold rains between radiant brightness. The birches are yellowing, the hawthorns reddening, the elders turn gold and purple, the swallows have all slipped away. Because it was my habit, a long time ago, to be in the North at the start of autumn, I have felt the pull of the clear cold, the descent of the year, bracken and heather, valley melancholy.
With this sudden,
Southern cold
I would be, again,
In Portree
On a bright morning
Watching the light
Push the small boats
Tethered to the tide
And the gulls
In the upper town calling
From the hills of roofs,
Naming them all :
The clouds and storms
Of coming winter
And with the smell of baking
And the smell of woodsmoke
And the roar of Time,
Shored up by thick walls
And a gathering of smiles.
—-
simonhlilly 