The summer was too long and warm.
The treelords in their high places
Confederated once the nights grew darker,
Exchanged rootwords with the willows of the valley.
The oak and the horse chestnut were all for it
Suffocating in their summer cloaks
Longing for their browning, branch-baring,
Leaf-mulch-moulting season.
The beeches on the high wolds murmured to the moon
Thinking of the old, cold days
Nodding their haughty heads.
Lime and elder furrowed barkknot brows
Catkin-called the hazel and the birch
And slowly, by sapthought and rootnet,
A consensus came.
The incantations started, then:
Ashfingers crooked to the sky
Windwords cast to the stars, summoning
Her: mistress of the forces of the great revolving world.
A whisper at first, then louder, raging,
Howling down through all the woods of England
Stormgod, galewolf, worldbreath she was
Cartwheeling, whirlpooling, leaf-torrenting through the dark
Winter in her wake.
In the bright morning, airspirit stilled
The treelords stand ankle-deep in brown and bronze
Bare arms embracing a new season.
The summer was too long, they said:
No time for autumn.