Your autumn came too swiftly
I am a community nurse and teacher and write for pleasure and for the nursing press.
I recently published a novel on Amazon, Last Summer in Soho, primarily to help raise the profile of school nursing. I have been asked to speak at many nursing conferences about my work, including most recently the International School Nursing Conference in Stockholm. I enjoy evoking the complexities of nursing, with affection and humour.
In my poetry and prose I explore themes of childhood, loss and trauma.
Here for a Season
There have been other autumn days,
A morning when I looked out over Oxford trees quietly dropping their fruit and leaves
Joyful and exhausted, holding our new son
And you brought me one of every kind of apple from the Tesco in Cowley Road,
Confusing the lady at the till and not caring, of course, about that.
Our boy had fallen, like a ripe, ruddy apple into our lives
Abruptly, appropriately, on the day expected.
Coming home to flowers, cards and whisky warmth to wrap our baby in, we
Retreated from the world and churches,
Keeping stillness in one room.
This autumn morning
–
Our grown babes sleep, exhausted.
Outside, some dry gold leaves from great old trees drift down past stone church walls.
You brought such love and music into our unusual lives
Borne proudly in like apple gifts for us to take or leave.
Colour that most people would not think to blend all in one jumper or sock.
Not caring about that at all, of course.
Your autumn came too swiftly then your winter.
And we all, dazed and heavy, with no music for this autumn day
Keep stillness in one room.
Jessica Streeting
21.10.2015
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