The Last Day of September

The Last Day of September

On the last day of September, I open the window. The swallows have gone now, fled towards sunnier places, leaving behind the quiet evidence of summer in the barn rafters: the nests, the feathers, the small, intimate architecture of a family that was here and is no longer. Their absence seems louder than their coming ever was.

I open the blinds.

Across the cropped cornfield, a deer is running. Just one, sudden and beautiful, crossing the stubble with that effortless, liquid urgency that makes the eye follow before the mind has caught up. Then, only a few feet away, eleven hen pheasants are pecking among the remnants of the harvest. They seem almost unconcerned by the season turning, scratching and feeding as though September were not already closing its door.

Then comes the cock.

Handsome, resplendent, quite certain of himself, he gathers his harem and leads them southwards across the field. There is something ceremonial in it, as though he knows the way the year is going and they are following.

A pigeon flutters into a nearby branch. The breeze gently ruffles its feathers, and for a moment the bird rocks there, soft and grey against the thinning green.

And then, somewhere close, comes the tick, tick, tick of the wren.

I cannot see her.

Not yet.

She remains hidden among the hedge and ivy, her small voice carrying more confidence than her tiny body could possibly contain. She is still here, still busy, still keeping her own counsel while the swallows have departed and the pheasants begin their journey and the fields lie bare beneath the changing sky.

I sit beside the window and listen.

The last day of September has not gone quietly.

It has deer running through it, pheasants crossing the stubble, pigeons trembling in the breeze, swallows absent from the rafters—and somewhere, unseen, a wren ticking away at the edge of the morning.

There are departures everywhere.

And yet, there she is.

Tick, tick, tick - The Wren and her message.

Words and image - www.theenglishherbalist.co.uk

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