October 2020

As 1 October is National Poetry Day, our story slot is given over to poetry this month. The following is taken from Alexander’s first published collection of poetry, ‘In a Time of Distance’ (published on 15 October). In it, he has a sequence – A Scottish Four Seasons. Here is Autumn, or Fall:

Autumn

 Look, the migrating birds

Are leaving us, small souls

That brave three thousand miles

To Africa, to warmth;

They populate the sky,

They take the last

Attributes of summer;

They are gone, and now

The winds will have them,

Their journey starts

In the knowledge that this,

Like the seasons, has to be.

 

Autumn is a time of reflection;

Of the making of lists,

Of books to be read now

That the nights are drawing in;

Of letters to be written,

Friends to be remembered,

The things they said

To be thought about further.

Perhaps, in short, to think

About what it is that makes

This life so precious

Of what it is that breaks the heart.