Autumn

Storm force winds now beginning to die down, still sighing in the chimney, as our first truly successful fire settles to a glow in the woodburner.

So today at last L made jam, something she has been talking about and saving jars for for - well for years actually. We even moved house with a box of jars! It's plum jam. She made five jars, sweet and red. And I remembered this - the poem and the time, many years ago now in another Yorkshire house, my sister-in-law making the jam, my lovely A the boy with cool hands.

Plum Jam

That one afternoon in the heart of autumn

When the light bled away from the windows

As we all sat together stoning plums

In a warm kitchen with condensation on the glass.

The growing heap of plum-halves in the shining pan,

The pale stones drying at my elbow

As you poured white cascades of sugar.

The smell of simmering fruit,

My back to the door, feet under the table,

And the boy with cool hands who came in moccasins

To perch on my knee.