Late September, an interregnum of heat among the scrambling of things

Summer’s burst. Now this strange new season.
Everywhere you might catch your eye
on thorns and spikelets.

Late September, an interregnum
of heat among the scrambling of things –
cinnabar-stripped ragwort, burdock,

willowherb, sorrel and teasel,
knapweed and nettle,
bramble sprawled to its extent.

Here is a twisting of time,
the gradient of wind shifted through thistledown
and the birch stand’s spindly thickening –

while the roof’s fallen in,
now the night’s drawing in
and just look at the stars turning over

and the parched calyces of red campion,
and the tangled bank of cow parsley
each darkening stem –

seed bristling in their steeping frailties
after each song and its singing
this quiet we’ve been keeping all along.

Silence, by Matt Howard