Vishal Dutia

We drove onwards and into the trees of fire
alight with flames of orange, red and gold.
the yellow ash of tomorrows carpet falling.
fluttering like butterflies from heat to cold
The wind lifts them. Confetti scattered to heaven!
Unseen hands throw them to hedgerows of rust.
Leaving nothing but the bones of the summer
as the skeletal year is slowly turning to dust.

Breakfast was eaten to the sound of waves
watching the shapes of the clouds in the sky.
We spy a snowman, laughing he twists and turns
then changes; see him become a pig in a sty.
Slabbed rocks. Drums that play the white foam.
Hypnotic, constant, the long-rolled tympani
on crazy hung rocks suspended in air,
eaten for eons by the malevolent sea.
Changing its shades with each glint of the sun.
From cold greys and blues to a spark of green,
Crashing white topped upon a brown shore,
with a final adieu to where summer had been.
But the gulls still craw, still a hunger to fill.
Gone the scraps from man, who followed the sun.
The cold wind blows through the soft Devon hills
With the world still turning, as it has always done.

© VishalDutia