September’s Poem of the Month 
The Gallery Press is delighted to be
publishing Andrew Jamison’s new
collection, Stay, on 28 September.

September

Night ushers in September
and streetlights flicker-flicker,

the last long evening leaves
but nobody grieves

when the last leaf quits its tree
to lay down autumn’s decree

to not take with a pinch of salt
the clock’s tick-tock default,

the river’s insistence,
nor the forest’s sense

of the ancientness of seasons,
the most ancient of treasons:

Eden, Adam and Eve,
of how there’s no reprieve

from the evil
and the beautiful,

the sense of a time
before the word ‘time’,

before the word ‘remember’,
before the first September.

from Stay (2017)
by Andrew Jamison