September

Night ushers in September

and streetlights flicker-flicker,

the last long evening leaves

but nobody grieves

when the last leaf quits its tree

to lay down autumn’s decree

to not take with a pinch of salt

the clock’s tick-tock default,

the river’s insistence,

nor the forest’s sense

of the ancientness of seasons,

the most ancient of treasons:

Eden, Adam and Eve,

of how there’s no reprieve

from the evil

and the beautiful,

the sense of a time

before the word ‘time’,

before the word ‘remember’

before the first September.

Andrew Jamison’s debut collection, Happy Hour, was published by Gallery Press. Born in County Down, he teaches in Bristol Grammar School.