On The Turn by Jerome Betts

On The Turn

Loaded, a sunflower’s head inclines,
Petals like tarnished epaulettes.
Teasels become all curved brown spines;
The beechmast crumples on the setts.
Now leaves display first yellow stains,
The cider-apple crop thumps down
And heaped-up trailers block the lanes
With loads to crush and press in town.

A tractor’s cab shakes drops of dew
From brambles’ blackening red beads;
Flurries of gulls and rooks pursue
The ploughshare slicing under weeds;
Wild strawberries bloom, defying ice,
Death-blow the season still delays,
Though indoors now the feet of mice
Patter the tale of shortening days.

by Jerome Betts

Editor’s Note: Iambic tetrameter displays the change of season from warmth to cold in this poem. Just when one expects another metered foot the line ends—how like our expectation for another warm day stymied by frost on the edges of the world.