Sally Evans (1942 / London)

I thank you for your view of a view of autumn, Keats
who never saw your own autumn with its actual pitfalls.
Yours was the autumn of childhood, of hope, or romance, of belief,
my mother's autumn though not that of her hardworking family,
yours was never my father's autumn, season of mists,
and yours is not mine. My autumn
for all I would like to subscribe to your lavish play,
is like yours only in single ways each year,
perhaps there are swallows making a din,
or plums and apples falling wasp-eaten, unharvestable.
There is no sickle in my vocabulary or shed,
my autumn is based more on dread of the winter
and having had so little time each summer
to tidy or attend to the garden. Last year
early snow fell on flower baskets ditched from the street
and remained both snow and baskets until the spring
leaving me two seasons behind, without strategy
for a fast approaching repeat autumn, little wonder
and no chance to make anything faintly rhyme,
such is our modern poetry and life