Autumn - a poem

Autumn

Getting out to get some air, get some space, I walk
among the appled rows, through thistles, toadstools, stingers,
and a fruit tree now cut down. Past serried rows of stalks

of some anonymous weed with feathery seed, a cheerful singer
at its own wake, I walk, up, and then down, down and then up
the row, thinking, feverishly, trying to put my finger

on the right way to go, the right thing to do. But
autumn is no time for such transparency. No time
for knowing. Keats was right about the mists. My toe hurts

from a blister (due to walking or athletes foot?) I climb
again, past the sawn-off tree, again, and it seems to be saying
I could’ve been a bird-table but someone forgot me as I’m

walking up and limping down. On the breeze decaying
fruit wafts its pong of musty mulch from apples strewn
and cloistered here between the trees my limping is my praying.

September’s heaved summer aside, sloughed it off too soon:
dusk is near – and always was – those years ago at noon.