As the summer days get shorter

Autumn’s presence slowly gets stronger

The leaves begin to fall on my green and well-kept lawn

The blackberries in the hedgerows swell and burst within my mouth

A taste that takes me back to my unfettered childhood

Back to a time when almost everything was good

Back to a time when body and mind were strong

When my judgement may have been wrong, but I believed I could right all wrongs

I would share my dad’s collected field mushrooms fried on Sunday mornings

Then be sick, just too rich cooked in butter they made me ill

Next Sunday I would eat them again same result some enjoyment then I was ill

I must have been a persistent little bastard, I still love mushrooms they no longer make me ill

Walking into the kitchen and the smell of raspberry jam being made

Mum made gooseberry, blackberry, strawberry and blackcurrant

All of these smells remind me of an untroubled childhood

Come on autumn bring your harvest to mind, even the smell of my dad’s pickled shallots is a memory sublime

Our lounge smelled of apples from our orchard

Brown skinned russets no fancy pink ladies

The plums we ate as they became ripe, damsons and a yellow one I can’t remember its name

Potatoes and onions from veg plot with rabbit my dad shot

Herrings from my uncle crown, caught with his own gnarled hands and nets

I remember all this as the autumn mists descend like an old lost friend