We are breakfasting in the small summerhouse

near the high back wall of our garden,

and reflecting on a world where malice

seems at the very end of its tether,

where avarice and nonsense are esteemed,

cruelty applauded, and kindness mocked.

Though autumn has begun, the wisteria

that festoons the south side of this bower

is flowering again, the lilac-blue petals

caressing the window panes. Two bumble bees

like plump dancers flit from flower to flower

in the soft, late September sunlight –

with a robin redbreast in the olive tree,

a red admiral on the ivy.

 

The driest of summers and our brief absence

for two weeks beside the balmiest of seas

shrivelled the plant’s leaves to a papery brown.

We removed them, and watered the roots.

And suddenly the flowers began to appear –

as if the plant’s autumn and winter

had been compressed into merely weeks.

This species was originally from China,

where it still represents a catalogue

of wished-for human conditions – like

prosperity, longevity, love, and wisdom.

 

At dusk the Jewish New Year will begin,

a time of celebration, reflection, atonement,

heralded by ‘a blowing of trumpets’.

According to TikTok this year’s fanfare

of rams’ horns in a Holy Land of

more than usual pestilential

tribulations will bring forth hosts

of Christians anticipating the Rapture,

ready to rise like balloons, and be welcomed

by the god of the three peoples of The Book,

the god of mayhem, havoc, fire, and famine.

 

Meanwhile, as yet, the sky beyond the flowers,

is merely azure, and infinite,

empty of souls.