Autumn Equinox

This day is the fulcrum, the tipping point

Over which the seesaw of the season

Balances, perfectly spirit level.

Day and night, with commensurate restraint,

Sit facing each other as if they’ve chosen

To let the year begin to unravel

While, for a moment, enjoying the sense

Of suspense in equiponderance.

Despite Day still being warm, there is a sense

Of the cold, of the dark, to come, of Night

Quite inexorably consuming the light:

Look out, the realm of darkness is immense.

An instant of stasis, as if time stalls,

As if a breath is held, then a leaf falls.

                                                                                                        Dave Alton

Dark Peak Walking

Rambling down a rubbled Roman road from

Purpled moor towards Hope, by a cohort

Of cone shedding pines. Let the gaze consort

With the view through the dale despite its slim

Exclamation mark cement works chimney

Giving the finger to farming. Hedge-row

Brambles hang heavy with blackberries that grow

So freely crumbles, it seems, have to be.

Mountain bikers, heather-faced, breathlessly

Pressing pedals to deny jagged stones

And gravity up that track where legions trod.

Endeavour fashions all there is to see

In this human nature, and sure as bones

Man passes by whether God or no God.

                                                                                                       Dave Alton