1ST PLACE Rites of Passage by Corinne Lawrence
1 September: useless to emulate a hedgehog in its nest of leaves, the first day of the Autumn term – the ‘New School Year ‘, is a long handled rake that drags me from my bed.
Summer dresses give way to winter wool. I don brand new uniform, the blazon of moving up a class. Striped cuffs are firm at the wrist, gymslip hem modestly below the knee – for the moment.
Relishing the crisp packet crunch of scuffling through leaf litter in shoes that reek of ‘Kiwi’, I ‘creep unwillingly to school’.
Pungent with brown paper virtue, new exercise books boast on my desk. I fill their opening pages in neat handwriting barely recognisable as my own.
Hibernation is out of the question in this ‘try harder’ term. New Year resolutions promise to hand homework in on time, put more effort into subjects I hate, bring something for October’s nature table.
Where summer has turned out its pockets, I scour the earth for treasures, display my hoard with blackberry-inked fingers: weather-forecasting pine cones, non-competition conkers, and, this year, obeying strict instructions not to touch, an enormous toadstool, dangerously red.
My favourite, though, is the collage of mottled leaves – rusted, blistered, parchment faded – an offering I value far above the Harvest Festival shoebox I’ve packed with tins of beans.
Squirrelling little acorns of learning deep in the long grasses of memory, I pray I’ll remember where to find them when famine strikes during exams in late November.
Always a fearsome hush of a week, the only sound is the swish and sigh of turning pages, as Winter kicks Autumn into touch.
The seasons of the year lend themselves to descriptive poetry. Who could view their countryside when month turns to month without finding something remarkable as time passes? These sights are loved by poets; and when they are augmented by personal recollections, original observations, powerful images and fascinating reflections, poetry spills from the pen.