Tuesday poem: Last leaf
October 7, 2014
Last leaf
Does the tree despise
the last leaf
clinging to a twig
in brown nostalgia?
Is it the wind,
or thin fingers flicking
that drives it on,
and out, at last?
Eager ground calls it —
shepherds it down,
corralling nitrogen;
sequestering damp.
P.S. Cottier
A surprisingly non-speculative poem for one who spent all weekend at a science fiction convention. And a surprisingly autumnal one for the beautiful spring weather in which it was written.
I was on two panels at the Conflux convention: one on editing anthologies and one on poetry. I may write a longer post about it when the energy returns. As the tree said to the last leaf.
Soon I should be receiving the entries in the ACT Writers Centre Michael Thwaites Poetry Prize for my judging pleasure. Second competition I’ve judged in a month, and the third this year. I may write a longer post about it…you know when.
Click this feather for further excellent poetic mulch:
Tuesday poems: [Mellow fruitfulness]
April 10, 2012
light slanting blinded
sun swoons into evening
winter comes to call
looks good: isn't.
winter cold as Karenin
clicking hard knuckles of frost
please take me to your railway
Yes, welcome to the wonderful city of Canberra, cold little capital town in a warm country. It was a balmy four degrees celsius this morning, and the leaves are falling from the trees in an icy wind. Just lovely. People go around in beanies and scarves saying ‘It’s a bit nippy, isn’t it?’ until you want a giant crab to attack them and cut off their blue fingers and red noses. Why, oh why, was Australia’s capital put here, rather than somewhere warm?
‘Autumn is so lovely.’ Thus spake the idiot at the shops this morning. No it’s not. Autumn is a disgusting harbinger of Winter, which lasts about nine months in Canberra, giving birth to a too short Summer after a dwarf Spring. Then comes another blood-red Autumn. And you walk around hallucinating about Queensland. (Ignoring the beauty of the native parrots and the huge flocks of cockatoos, nestled, perversely, in the introduced deciduous trees.)
Now, for a really lovely unfolding global birthday poem, written in a much more generous spirit than my little anti-Canberra rant, please click this feather, which has fallen onto the screen like a black Autumn leaf! Only birdier.
PS Cottier 