a September scene...

...from the past. This is about three years old, but I came across it and I think it captures a particular quality of a clear, crisp autumn day. I'm not saying it's the best ever, or even my best ever, but I love September, and it's nearly over now. And someone was just commenting the other day about how quiet everything seemed, even in the street.

It’s one of those early September mornings

When everything glows blue and yellow

And still looks freshly dew-struck at 10 o’clock.

We’re into core hours on the flexi-time, meaning I’m late,

And the main road is completely gridlocked.

There’s been some kind of accident,

The driver tells us after sitting still for fifteen minutes,

So everybody gets off and starts to walk:

Suddenly there are dozens of council workers milling futilely on the pavement

Or meandering through stalled traffic.

Our bus sits at an angle to the kerb, beached,

And the driver’s hunched over a walkie-talkie while another guy smokes.

A lone ambulance sits in the middle of the road.

The only sound that filters through the sudden glasslike serenity of the scene

Is a baby helicopter, whining above our heads.

In the September stillness everything is blue and yellow.

All other signs of the incident may have disappeared

But it’s clear the bus won’t be going anywhere for ages yet.

I ignore my colleagues on the pavement, who are not speaking, anyway:

This is clearly not the day for all that.

Instead, I turn under the bridge and into the park,

Where I see only a couple of laughing girls in hijabs

Walking arm in arm by the canal as I go past.

And all around me there are crowds of enormous shiny blue-black crows

Sitting on posts, or picking in the sprouting grass.