September sunshine

This September for a moment is as bright as this April
skies are blue, the sun is shining, the trees are still green  
but now the green is an old green of leaves aged by a summer of rainy days
and there and here, a hint of summers colour shows instead of green. 
The rowan berry’s are turned red, the hawthorn’s too 
As we walk the paths - rich ripe blackberries call us to pluck them 
The perfect sky is empty of the swifts, a few young swallows gather on the telephone wires
Waiting for that moment to set off.
Peacocks and Red admirals flutter at my window?
After a silence, the Robins begin to sing again, carving out new territories.
This equinox is day of Indian summer, a vagrant warmth in the Sun    

   
The last shavings of the grass fields for winter feed has left the tops looking a patchwork
The lapwings and curlews have left those high fields now 
Now the meadow pipits and stonechat hunt the last of the insects
There is an elegiac feel to these last few days of summer light,  
a time when the mist hangs in the valley in the morning and the spiders
hang in their jewelled traps,  diamonds  hang  in the air 
An elegy for a world we once knew, a world where we had control 
now we face a winter of challenge finally aware that we are partners 
in the common destiny of our planet not the master.