Withdrawing into itself, this long year
reframes its course, stumbles to November silence.
The season of damp socks and clogged gutters.
There’s a loosening of grip, every future
tense with the rustle of pavements, their amber drift.
Confess: not one leaf knows where it will fall.
Driven by tailwinds of our past, you’ve reached
that place you can let go. A nation at half-mast,
all cable ties and cheapjack manufacture.
Let colours fly. Until starlings gather
there are few enough birds to fill the sky. Sodden
after storm, a frayed, bedraggled prospect.
x. 2025
