we would like you to know that we are not them

don paterson signed my/his book

Aid Foran

For Aidan

Harvest

Harvest time: the trees,

mottled in dying colours,

hang out their new found

beauty in a final farewell.

The fields are turned earth,

smelling real or shorn to

sharp stalks. The sunlight

returns to us, yet the cattle

keep their coats; root crops

populate new recipes and

fruit weighs on the boughs.

The water is alive, is teaming.

An Autumn mess, in all its

comfort, circles the fireplaces

of the evening and settles in

a chair that, of course, creaks

as it relaxes. New meaning

comes to a vocabulary put

aside for the summer months;

the season exhales, it reclines

into a colder sleep wherein

the silent promise of full

foison is finally whispered:

we shall die, you know, we

shall all die. Yet in that silence;

that desuetude, in the deep

uncanniness of sudden familiarity,

the two seasons fuse. And

in the weft of before and

after the nature of love

is revalued and, in thanks,

prepares, gives, makes ready.