Still busy with trimming back, final weeding and tidying the garden, I was stopped in my tracks this morning by a little flock of nine long-tailed tits, angry and twittering over my intrusion on their garden visit. Best to retreat back indoors and watch their busy lives from our window.
As the cold winds set in and days grow ever shorter, a poem from our resident allotment poet arrived at my doorstep. Capturing the essence of the autumnal stillness, the changing light and the welcome song from the few remaining birds in our gardens, it was recorded on Wednesday down in the allotment. I urge you to read this outside, sitting perhaps on your garden bench? Or loitering, as dusk approaches, with a cup of tea in your hand...
November evening on the allotment
Waxing gibbous moon
Titanium white
Silhouette trees
Mars black
Cloudscape archipelago
Of mauve and grey
A lone bat looping
On a vespertine ellipse
The old grey ratter
Maundering homeward
Leaves skitter
Like small rodents
As I close the latch gate
on Shipyard Lane
a robin is threading
A thin twist of melody
On the evening air
Phil Mullane
