The Skimming Stone – Idris Caffrey

I knew when I threw it
that this one was different
as it whisked through the autumn river,
so many skims that I lost count.
And I thought that I had made
a mental note of its weight, its size,
the way I held its smoothness in my hand.
I could never do it again
and I wanted that stone back to start over
but it sank, found its depth
and nestled there among the years.

Autumn – Dawn Hogarth-Burton

The harvest is in
Wounded wastes of stubble
Bleed poppies at their edges
The hedges are hung with
Blue-black sloes
Arched tree boughs
Visibly groan
Autumn moths purr through
Heavy air, fall
Like stones into foliage
Bats swoop. An owl calls
The red disk of sun
Sinks slowly out of sight and
The intermittent thud of apples
Paces the Autumn night.

I’d Soonest Sit And Seldom Run – David Seddon

If we could live our lives for best
We’d let our sun, a sluggard, rest
And gently turn our lives from speed
And find in nature all we need,
For what’s the point of mighty act
Or counting minutes so exact
When we could measure precious things
Like honeycombs and swallow’s wings?
Such cleverness that man deploys
To keep himself from simple joys:
To choose the life of treadmill rat
I cannot say I follow that.

To laze upon the meadow grass
And let the empty moments pass,
To lie with mayflower by its stream
And idle banks of wind and beam,
To breeze with hoverflies in flight
And gasp at lace-wings with delight,
To roll with beetle to its grub
And whirl with twirling, curling bug:
It’s where I’ll find my happiness
And endless peace and thankfulness,
To choose a life that sings the sun
I’d soonest sit and seldom run.

Crowd – David Norris-Kay

Autumn has funnelled Summer
into shivers.
Its vapours rise up, crowd
into black, animal-shaped
storm-heads:
Lions swollen with roars
leap through cracks of thunder;
pounce
on rain-needled dark,
flickering with flashes.

Storm-startled, I cower
in the moor’s
wind-rumoured howlings.
Whipped with seething bracken,
I plunder deep valleys
for salvation: expectations
falter in crackling air,
and my nemesis
advances in a crowd
of deceptive, ancient Gods.

Compassion - Diana Erskine-Hill

Oceans of Aum
A stillness
New realms
Yellow gold leaves
Just falling
Waking up
To the stillness
Withous noise