NEW POEM: THE SPELLING OF AUTUMN

For the benefit of the Bewildered, of which group I am a fully paid up member, here is my latest poem, composed earlier in the year:

THE SPELLING OF AUTUMN

1.

When I said that it was autumn,

I could sense the soft departure

of my deity and calling

as they left me to the wasteland.

This occurred as I was moving

from the failure of my harvest

in ’25, though pausing

to admire the elegant spelling

of autumn and its bonding

of m and n that made

a tacit kind of music.

“What a lovely word,” I mumbled

vocationless and godless 

at my computer screen.

‘The rest of this existence

may flounder into nothing

but the graceful spelling of autumn

has what it takes to stay.’

2.

When I said that it was autumn, 

autumn said that it was me –

we were identical 

creatures losing leaves.

Heeding the long-range forecast,

I’m busy bailing out

the bilgewater at last

to sail the Stygian seas 

between here and hereafter,

both cabin boy and captain

of a craft with a single mast.

Reluctant, not the least

resigned to my departure

from the shores of everyday,

I’ll keep a cherished charm

against demons and delay – 

the graceful spelling of autumn

my travel pass and totem.

3.

When I said that it was autumn,

with the stripping of the trees 

and the leafy agitation,

with the failure of my harvest

and the death of my vocation,

with my fear of nervous breakdown,

distressed by all events

I prayed Emitte lucem

tuam et veritatem

but was granted no assurance,

not a prayer of breaking into

the light and truth away from

life’s headlong floundering.

What keeps me compos mentis,

my one and lone asylum,

is the minuscule epiphany

of a needle’s-eye redemption,

the graceful spelling of autumn.

© Ciaran O'Driscoll 2026

NOTES:

* “a craft with a single mast”:  craft, boat or calling; a single mast, the t in autumn perhaps??

* “Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem (tuam)”: Send forth your light and truth (Psalm 43)