Autumn's Fall

by Kerrie Hardie

It seems the rain will be its end - the smell

of rotting-down in ditches, under trees,

the sharp scent of late apples in wet grass,

the spent leaves guttering in the stone-flagged well.

The spaces in the branches stretch and grow.

High spiralling of crows in thin sky.

The grey drift of the distance.  Nothing more

Of hope or exultation in the flow

of damp air from the windows that I leave

to let the year move quietly through the house

preparing for the long dark and the cold,

loosening the nets spent thoughts still weave,

clinging as cobwebs.  There must be space for death,

and witness for this seep of emptying light;

for winter, pressing with the cattle at the gate,

clouding the darkness with their frightened breath.