The End Of A Season

Time to go home.
Time to leave the landscape blue like drifted smoke
except where a coppery branch has escaped the wind
or finches zip stripy into the distance.
No time to hang about
with frost threatening to fur our bones.
No time to explore the leaf-crisped lanes
where the scents of young summer, Mayflower and rose,
are drops of blood hung on old thorns;
and the birds that brought thoughts of faraway places
with a dip of their wings have flown.
Time to scuttle for roost
as the shape of a white owl quarters the land.
Time, for darkness is at our door,
to shake off our boots with their clumpy fetlocks.
Time to slow down, to stop all openings,
...