Kenneth Stephen’s sensitive response to Scottish nature subjects will be familiar to many Herald readers. This autumnal meditation is characteristic of his work. It comes from his new collection Evensong (SPCK Publishing, £8.99).
The late sun leaving in the trees an orange-red,
A soft honey fire. There has been no breath of wind
In fifteen days; leaves hang gold and gorgeous
In the woods, and through them the deer tread
Patched with light, wary. The year begins to die;
The rowans hang in blood-red clutches, every day
The ripe sun is lower in the sky. Is this what it must be?
Or did everything begin to live for ever
Before the bite of the apple and the long fall
Into our own demise? Is the worm at the earth’s heart
Our fault, the birth of our badness,
Or is the last blizzard of all things,
The withering of all that is, no more
Than it should be, like a child’s blown bubble -
Beautiful to begin with, spinning reds and blues -
Until it fades into a ball of cobwebs, bursts
In a thistledown of drops?
All I know is the seed sleeps December long -
Forgotten, gone, buried in the dark -
And then is born again.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article