The Last of Summer Their branches scoring space like Shiva, wind Takes the oak and the wych-elm dancing. Out in mid-field grass and sunlight mingle To project a viridescent sheen Against else-clear sky: A mellow flash, Some Martian’s April Fool perhaps Though it’s now October and already Swallows are in training for Gibraltar And beyond; our cabbages’ve sprouted Into king-sized turbans, behind the poplars A harvester spouts stubble with a rrrrrr Then sudden whoosh: Signs all meaning Summer’s Gone again. Over barns, paddocks, meadows Thistles propel tiny parachutists Toward next spring, kamikazeish rendezvous With some distant clod. A partridge scuttles past As though on rails. Another snapshot for Memory’s almanac, dapper crests of moor- hens constellate the millpond, its surface Turned pewtery with deep-stewed sedge. Scattering perennial chromes and rust The world’s a wheel that’s got us in its spin: From thinning treetop to thinning treetop Rooks unfurl furlongs of din – Wintry echoes infiltrating southwards Despite pylons’ titanic tuning-forks Patrolling along the landscape edge. A guesstimated twenty times shorter, I dawdle here below the hawthorn hedge – Footsteps going anapest, spondee, iamb – Thoughts pausing between sight and rhyme... Martin Bennett | Mudlark No. 12 Contents | In Victoria Coach Station