At last it's autumn. The long hot summer clung on in the face of shortening days, the sun shone and it has been warm enough to sit outside . Until this week. Finally we have had rain enough to fill all the water butts and turn the soil from dust to something like its proper texture . The trees are at last turning to red and gold and brown, the fields are cultivated, winter wheat is beginning to show in some places and I saw my first skeins of geese heading south a couple of days ago.

Poets have always been particularly fond of autumn , sometimes celebratory (think Keats 'To Autumn' ('season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'), sometimes depressing (Thomas Hood, 'November') and often nostalgic, looking back on life and fearful of the dark. Certainly it somehow seems easier to write about than summer !

So this edition of the collection has an autumn theme, with pieces written over several years with the most r3cent being only a couple of weeks ago. Thanks for visiting the site - it has been very encouraging to see how n=may people have visited . Hope you enjoy what follows.

Ian

If you would like to read more, please go to the poetry section.