Late September early morning
still dark enough outside.
I wake to let the old cat out and see
the Harvest Moon hang full and heavy-low
on top of the Mulberry tree. Autumn’s smells
almost in the air. A startled Blackbird’s shrill
spills across the tips of first grass-frost and
I go back inside – into the cold – boil the kettle
in the half-light, bring a mug of coffee back to bed
to read old man poets for company:
Jack Gilbert, Donald Hall, Dermot Healy.
I’ll think of you later when I wake again
with children’s voices carried through the hedge
from next doors’ garden: a brother, a sister out playing
a mother’s gentle voice calling after them
the sound of their father’s laughter close by
and I’ll wonder where it all went wrong, or
if you already knew already back then
we that we wouldn’t see the flowers we planted
grow together? I think I knew that Autumn day
I planted bulbs for you: Daffodils in September
to remind you of me each Spring.
Poem by Fergus Hogan
Fergus Hogan lives in Waterford, Ireland, where he teaches Family Therapy to Social Care Students at WIT. His first chapbook of poems Bittern Cry was published by Book Hub Publishing in 2019. He was recently commended in the Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition for his collection Crow Magic. In 2018 his spoken word poem Consent won first prize in Waterford’s inaugural spoken word and slam poetry competition.