Watcher

Watcher

Autumn, the quietening down of life,
Patient, docile, led meekly to the kill.
Infused with the chill smoke of bonfires and over ripe fruits,
The berries melting in the hedges.
Dark green leaves curling and twisting tortured on their stalks.
I pace, watch the falling and the sharpening.
Winter's teeth.
The darkness encroaches,
The stars blaze brighter, pointed into frozen white fire.
Animals slink through the hedgerows,
their coats matt and raised,
Hackles clenched against the season of dark dream that rises over the
hills,
Spreading it's sickening breath of mud
And the dead black birth of days.