If I could slow the moving tide of Autumn,
Stop each and every leaf prepared to fall;
Would I miss the fading hues verbatim,
The beauty in the colours of perennials tall?
Chattering, the swallows meet too soon to fly;
Patterned forms stir beauty in striation;
The buzzard shrieks an urgency of cry;
Across open land, a shadowed murmuration.
How could I not lament the shortening of the daylight,
The hours that shift the balance of the skies ?
The silvered glow over jewelled ground by moonlight;
Breathtaking,the Northern lights, majestic in our eyes;
These things of beauty I could not miss in hindsight;
This gradual change and rhythm a revelatory surprise.
I have entered this poem for the National Poetry Organisation Annual Competition.
Ruth Partridge 