Sedgeford October
somewhere mellow between
the end of the overblown blackberries
_________and
the start of the harvested leaves
fused flies
on clinical sills
hint at bleached sun
_________and
in the hedges
thistle winds to come
to eyes trained on histrionic heights
of Welsh adolescence,
this stubborn serenity,
these mediaeval colours
_________are
endlessly reassuring:
a great grey blanket billowing unbroken from the North Pole
wild chords of geese in its folds;
the flinty, dependable noun
behind mists of adjectives
Poem Notes: This was when Octobers were a lot colder, children. The Rialto published this in the early 90s. It was originally written for the King's Lynn Festival in the summer of 1993 - an evening called "Poems and Places" - where I shared the billing with the uniformly excellent Alan Brownjohn, Kevin Crossley Holland and Paul Berry. They, like so many other poets, all live round these here parts and all continue to do sterling and likeable work. As I have a busy month or so finishing off my Exile tour in Wells, Wiveton and West Acre (along with workshops in my own school) I thought I'd choose a very local Norfolk poem from the new book to announce it. It will probably be a lot colder by the time I get to West Acre on Friday November 3 - but these days you never know.
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