Keats and Covid: poems about autumn

In Competition No. 3169 you were invited to submit a poem about autumn in which the last letter of each line becomes the first of the following line.

Many of you wrote in praise of what the novelist Charlotte Mendelson has described as ‘the loveliness of rotting nature’; a time when nature feels at its most alive. But, in this gloomiest of autumns, there were haters too.

Honourable mentions go to Richard Spencer, Tim Raikes, John Priestland, R.M. Goddard, Phillip Warke, David Silverman, David Shields, Maggie McLean, Paul Freeman, Janine Beacham and Hannah Killough (aged ten). The best, in a hotly contested week, are printed below and earn their authors £30 apiece.

‘Season of mists’ — OK, give it a rest.This autumn John Keats’ vision is reset.Time to recalibrate ‘maturing sun’.Nature’s surrendered to the internet.  Tracking down Covid tests, checking the news;such now our seasonal activity.Yet solemnly we trace our future’s track,knowing ‘late flowers’ might be the last we’ll see.  Each day begins (Today) with Radio Four}reminding us how Covid, creeping, slipssoft as a breeze among the turning leaves,silent as autumn’s music on masked lips.  Swallows have gone and Twitter rules, and nowWestminster stumbles on, with each mishappacked as with ‘fumes of poppies’, sound asleep.Picked all the apples? Now download the App. D.A. Prince

Summer wanes and sadly passes; autumn’s crop of lads and lasses,Summoned back to daily classes, seem (a few, at least) uncheerful,Loath to tolerate existence ruled by masks and social distance, Even minimal resistance earning dissidents an earful.   Let’s remember to remind them autumn twenty one will find them,Mask-encumbered days behind them, far from present-day dejections, Showing boldly what creative adolescent minds are made of,Free to exercise their native gifts for rowdy insurrections.  So don’t hesitate to mention, now and then, to ease their tension, Normal seasonal conventions while the leaves are slowly turning Gold with chlorophyll receding: harvest feasting, trick-or-treating, Goblins, witches, fortune reading, sparkling nights and bonfires burning.