Indian summer weather has gone at last –
no more warm blue afternoon skies and still, dewy mornings.
Suddenly the sky is full of flying grey tatters of cloud;
and rooks are practising their synchronised wheeling,
like stray tea-leaves swirling in a rinsed teapot.
A cool damp wind soughs through the sere beeches.
A few brown-edged leaves rustle and whirl from their branches
to join the rooks with every gust.
Rain spatters in the humid air,
releasing the scent of wet earth from the newly-harrowed fields,
and I can hear the surf roaring distantly on the rocks.
It’s the end of summer,
and I am strangely elated at the year’s turning.