Haiku Gold

 

Haiku Gold is the third part in my series of haiku collections exploring the four different seasons. Each collection explores how the different seasons affect the woods, fields, hedgerows, plants, and animals which inhabit the beautiful Devonian countryside.

   Above all, Haiku Gold is a celebration of autumn.

   Autumn is my favourite season. A season touched with magic as the faded leaves of summer make way to a dazzling display of golds, reds, and browns. When you walk on a natural carpet of autumnal colours which crunch under your feet.

Autumn has its own particular smell.

   The fresh smell of raindrops falling on the sun-baked soil which slowly turns soft underfoot. The earthy smell of leaves decomposing into a waiting soil. While ripe apples drop from heavily laden branches scenting the grass with sweet, cidery smells. The warm smells of nighttime fires, of carved pumpkins, burning mountains of fallen leaves, and the sulphur scents of fireworks exploding in the night.

   It is also a time of bounty.

  The fruits of the hedgerows entice the traveller as blackberries change from pale green and reds to enticing sweet blackness. Blackthorn branches burst with blue sloes ready to be picked and preserved in age old countryside traditions. While pumpkins inflate like orange hot air balloons tethered to the ground by trailing green vines.

   I read my poetry at many events and one of the major pieces of feedback I have received was that people were fascinated to hear the story behind the haiku. Therefore, scattered throughout this collection are my reminiscences of how some of the following haiku were written.

 

    Haiku Gold is a memory of my Devonian autumns. Pictures of

autumn recorded as haiku for everyone to experience and enjoy.

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   Available from all good bookshops.