| INTIMATIONS OF AUTUMN by Phil Kemp INTIMATIONS OF AUTUMNSunlight fading, a chill wind drives away last of the day’s heat; in the forest I walk through, the turning of green to red is my life, darkening in the dusk.I am not where I was, not what I had been in summer.In the cool of evening a quarter moon rises to claim the night-coming sky. All my resolutions born in summer, left undone.In the night, the wind changed its direction to the north; I woke, and the trees were bare. SOPHIA AT MY WINDOWWith bowed head, upon the lower branch, Wisdom stares at the window. I wonderif I’m worthy of her presence. She awes me. I want her to speak.Her servant, I’ll listen. Sophia, you survey what moves. What do you see in my heart?we lock glazes and then I blink. Only an empty tree remains. I’ll remember her in darkness. FOURI flew home from my father’s funeral.Four days later a car knocked me down at an intersection.Four months recovery at home.Four months solitude and silenceFour years later, I have planted many verdant trees. BURIEDiI piled earth onto my father, stepped back; my duty done, and took my place with the mourners.I loosed his boat into unknown seas,returned afterwards to an empty house as the sun set over the stones of our ancestors.iiWhen I was a boy my father brought me a model train for my birthday. He had loved to play with a model railway when he was a boy; I supposed it was the little universe he could control when all around was the chaos of the war.I had no interest in moving steam trains around a track, except to hear them crash at high speed and leave the safety of the rails.I would rather follow the solitary path along the river behind our house that led to the once-running railway now deserted. Its tracks were removed, their indentations pressed into the open fields.Before his death three years of silence ruled. He might have forgotten me.I had nothing to say to him the day I left him weeping at Gillingham station. ARTHUR’S SEATWhat I write comes from the Sundays when I walked on the higher road to wind-ruffled Dunsapie Loch and ascended on the well-worn grass to the summit of Arthur’s Seat.From this extinct volcano on a sunny day in May My view encompasses Edinburgh’s whole, out to the Forth bridges, across Fife’s kingdom to Highland peaks; then east to Bass Rock southward to Pentlands and Moorfoots. A whole world below. A whisper of words elevates me to this place. About the Author:  Phil Kemp was born in London in 1960. He received his M.A. (Hons) in History from the University of Edinburgh and his Postgraduate Diploma in Librarianship from the College of Librarianship Wales (now part of the University of Wales) in Aberystwyth. In 2001, Phil relocated to Iowa City, Iowa, where he resides with his wife.Phil’s poem River was published for Iowa City’s Poetry in Public contest in 2017. He is the author of two unpublished novels, set in the UK, spanning periods from the sixteenth century to the present day. Phil is currently a member of the Triptychs, a poetry workshop in Iowa City facilitated by Jeanette Miller, author of Unscheduled Flights published by Adelaide Press earlier this year. |
