Kate Williams

The Trees Behind the Teachers’ Cars – Autumn Term

Behind the cars the trees have turned to treasure – 
red as rubies, bold as gold bars.

If Sir was a pirate
he’d be cramming his boot with booty,
except that it’s really just leaves, of course,
gone bizarre.

Published in Read Me At School, Macmillan, 2009.
One of 4 poems about the trees, as seen through the eyes of a school pupil through the seasons.

Autumn Leaves

Lifting, gliding,
drifting, riding,
the dare-devil dancers flow.

Swooping, sweeping,
crazily leaping,
firework-orange, candle-bright,
through the murky night
they flow.

Rolling, rushing,
huddling and hushing,
whispering secrets as they go,
over the tall, bare trees they flow,
through the evening indigo,
over the brim of horizon’s rim…

Then where?
We’ll never know.

Written to support my ‘Autumn Leaves’ workshops.
(I intended the poem to be stretched and swirled across the page, 
but the website had other ideas.)

A Leaf in the Half Light  (a variation on the idea above)

A lemony leaf took off in the twilight,
up through the evening sky.

Over the fading fields it flew,
and the twinkling town, as darkness grew;
over the silver ribbon of river
it sailed, far up high,

Through the distant wisps of mist
in the deepening dome as nightfall drew;
over the velvet edge of the earth,
through the last chink of blue.

Written to support my workshops – and for pleasure, of course.

A note about the previous post:  ‘Can You Hear The Treetops?’ is actually about summer trees, as you’ll see, and to be published as such, so I couldn’t alter it, but I think it’s just as relevant to autumn ones, so please read ‘summer’ as ‘autumn’ this time!

Copyright: please note that I have copyright of all poems on this page, and on this website (unless otherwise stated). Thank you.