Winter Portents

By next door’s chicken coop, a fox ghosts past
and, bold with hunger, skims the fence posts,
a sign of what is to come.

Berries blob like blood on spruce and rowan,
old wives’ tales of a turning season,
another sign of what is to come.

On the sill, in late sun, bask crisp wasp corpses,
outside the window, a spiral of midges –
both signs of what is to come.

The first of the fallen beech and oak leaves
scurry by on a desiccating breeze,
a sure sign of what is to come.

These are portents of the coming winter chill,
even while autumn leaves are turning still.

Kim M. Russell, 12th September 2023

Image by Martin Arusalu on Unsplash

Tuesday at the dVerse Poets Pub means Poetics
and this week Lisa is our host with semiotics.

Lisa says she has learnt that looking for signs is an old practice. She talks about the experience of being presented with a sign without asking and wondering how to interpret it, and has given us examples of poetry by Shakespeare, Rick Anderson and Joy Harjo to inspire poems about signs.

The challenge is to choose one of three options. We can write a poem about an experience when we have asked for a sign, or come upon a sign

unasked-for, and interpreted it; or we can write about a myth, legend, or story about asking for or interpreting signs; or we can be world creators and design and write about our own signs – all with no form, time, space, or syllabic constraints.

41 thoughts on “Winter Portents”

  18. I like it a lot, yes, we have ample warning signs that winter will come. It always has. What about the bear, getting fat to live off for the long sleep.
    It was one of my chores growing up on the farm, to catch the roosting chickens and take them into the shed. We had visiting foxes.
    ..

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