November leaves - Villanelle

Last late November leaves remain

Refusing to let go and fall

With cold hard wind and driving rain

Defying winter’s cruel call

Skeins of geese stretch against grey sky

Last late November leaves remain

Seeking haven, fields by eastern seas

Call “Courage, onward” as they fly

With cold hard wind and driving rain

The gale whirls blown tattered leaves

Over wind emptied frames of trees

Last late November leaves remain

The leaves brought low to sodden ground

Lie lifeless. Daylight soon will fade

With cold hard wind and driving rain

No geese now stretch against grey sky

Last late November leaves remain

Lost memories for whom none now grieve

With cold hard wind and driving rain

21/11/25

This is a variation on the November leaves theme - almost the same lines as the pantoum but arranged differently (and perhaps even more mournfully).

Probably the best known villanelle is Dylan Thomas's 'Do not go gladly into that good night'

A Run between Autumn and Winter

Flat fields unfold

Beneath the sullen sky

Winter green grow wheat blades

Silent as I run by

Hedgerows quiet

No song of springtime birds

No stir of summer breeze

Last leaves drift down unheard

Woods rise as isles

Above late autumn seas

Grey brooding branches still.

For winter wait the trees.

Faint ghosts of farms

Found only on old plans

Ploughmen, homewives, horses

Who once worked this land.

All gone from here

As soon this fading year

Will become forgotten

Despite its hopes and tears.

I reach hard road

Turn tired towards my home

Light and warmth and love

I will not be alone.

26/11/2022

Inspired by a Saturday morning run out east beyond the old airfield, where at there are the sites of at least 2 abandoned farms, one entirely vanished. It was a still, grey day but mild.

A walk between Autumn and Winter

Yesterday grey clouds pressed on rain-soaked earth

Air still between autumn and winter cold

Today is quiet but for angry jay

Though now November’s weakened midday sun

Casts our long shadows onto fallen leaves

Changing sad brown to yellow shades and gold

Makes blurred reflections on the muddied dyke

Whose silent ripples flow towards the bridge.

The year is failing, fading into dark

Last leaves falling, unshape, merge into mould

But not before new burst of springtime green.

This earth’s sad season will itself soon fade

Life grow from grief, hope rise from deep despair

Search close the hedge. Buds are already there.

27/11/22

This unrhymed sonnet was written after an afternoon walk in the woods about 5 miles away: it seemed right somehow to bring a little hope into the greyness

Sappho's Lament

Were you still here you would wish to tell me

That it was the little things that made our love.

That their meaning can be carried in the darkness of life’s night.

You would say “You know too how soon the world forgets.

Indeed it has forgotten the ripples our love made

Though in time to come someone might say ‘Was she not the one who..?’ “

But for me, left alone, I shall love that echoing ripple,

The touch of heart on heart as long as there is life.

So do not be concerned you are no longer with me.

Forever you will be a firm friend, a lover through the years

Though painful is the parting

And bitter are the tears.

26/9/14

This was written on a reflective writing course run by the East Anglia Faculty of The College of General Practitioners. We were given what are said to be the only remaining fragments of lines of a poem by Sappho, discovered on papyrus used to wrap an Egyptian mummy and had to incorporate them into a pice of writing, The italics in the vession below are the translation of the original words on the papyrus

Were you still here you would wish to tell me

That it was the little things that made our love.

That their meaning can be carried in the darkness of life’s night.

You would say “You know too how soon the world forgets.

Indeed it has forgotten the ripples our love made

Though in time to come someone might say ‘Was she not the one who..?’ “

But for me, left alone, I shall love that echoing ripple

The touch of heart on heart as long as there is life.

So do not be concerned you are no longer with me.

Forever you will be a firm friend, a lover through the years

Though painful is the parting

And bitter are the tears.