All Hallows being 1st November. If you detect a different look to the draft – it’s just because I used a hand-sharpened pencil for a change. Aesthetically pleasing; but takes a bit more time than a mechanical pencil or a ballpoint.
November 3rd 2023
At least this jacket-slassing weather grants us rainbows,
In these breaks from the drippy hail
Which view us storm-polished blue patches
Amongst the ready-to-rumble coalsack clouds.
Those flickflack-scattered sun shafts, meanwhile,
Pretty the slate purple shadowed sea with suddenglitter aquamarine;
And, how the gorseflowers glow when that light comes
For moments electrically on!
If you have a good stick, phoneless concentration, and tractor tread boot-grip,
These rainy paths are quite fun –
For you can laugh back at that slipperytrip mud
As you obey the spraybeat call of the shore.
Now, please, credit this Autumn air for being mild;
And admit that always sun on the skin’s so good.
Plus, this wind’s gusto well de-dusts
A brain over-indoored by persistent rain:
Lethargy springcleaned away, as if mat-beaten –
And so lucky us, for the Atlantic does this all unpaid.
As brightness breaks through between bay-blanking squalls,
Time for a short swim;
Or, rather, a repeated routine of surf strides,
Breaker underdives, and timed leaps to turmoil-ride shorewards
On doublepunch Musselwick wave breaks.
Hastily dried, now to briskly stride home –
But not because the sea was cold,
For it never seems so when white boiling loud
And, anyway, this is only early November.
No, no: my hurry’s reason is, there are few better flavours
In any of Pembrokeshire’s myriad seasons
Than a chunky British mug of builder-strength tea!
© Christopher Jessop 2023
