No guarantee

Overnight, the valley’s turned.
Its trees and hedges, wearied by

the endless summer days, have spurned
their tender murmuring for dry-

as-paper rustling in reply
to breezes brushed with leaf more rare

than gold, beneath a cloudless sky –
a beauty he can hardly bear.

He sees leaves fade then fall; then bare
limbs silhouetted under rough

storm clouds; then spring – all he can know
is how their scent suffused the air,

the feel and soft sound as he scuffed
through dampened drifts, lifetimes ago.

Published, Kent & Sussex Folio, 2018, and The Curlew, 2019