Autumn Equinox

In spring it could have happened another way.

But now the edges of shortening days

draw together their sunlit corners,

sheets to be folded away for winter.

Night and day look at each other as equals.

The path splits like a serpents tongue

and we take the darker one, less travelled,

that ends with the apple falling in our hand

We all know what they lost in the darkness.

But not how Eve felt when knowledge emerged

like stars from under the ignorant light.

Or why God made temptation ripen

on the cusp of the seasons as though

he wanted us to choose the night.

Generation Gap

Or Dissent in the Biscuit Cupboard

I’m from a long line of rich tea biscuits

First made in the seventeenth century.

To satisfy Yorkshire gentry’s demand

for something sweet to dunk in their tea.

Since then we’ve been dunked all over the world,

through the ages, from shore to shore.

But these young biscuits of today

don’t respect those of us who came before.

These young’uns seem only half baked

with their cream fillings and chocolate chips.

But we’ve been there through destruction and war

brought comfort to trembling lips.

We’ve sat in shelters with the poor

and with the rich taking tea at the Ritz,

praying that the tin hat of the lid is on

as V2’s came down in the blitz.

Now young cookies laugh when I purse my lips

at this fad for biscuits individually wrapped.

We knew how to live as neighbours back then

snugly together in our communal packs.

And though my decadent doughy decedents

are more to the taste of kids today

their granny’s eyes light up with joy

at my familiar face on the biscuit tray.

Because we have a lot in common these days:

This world feels strange to her as well.

We’ve both seen it changed beyond understanding.

Both survived the blast of a shell.

So a moment passes between us

every Sunday at quarter past three.

When, smiling kindly, she takes me

and dunks me into her tea.