Autumn Pavilion

Leaf 149 – Looking Back

 

This poem was originally published in still 3: four (1999), which was several years before I first went to China. Consequently, I think I must have written it originally with an English seafront promenade or suburban park pavilion in mind. But I distinctly recall this poem coming to mind again when I was in Beijing a few years later, in the summer of 2006, where I came across an ornate wooden painted pavilion in one of the parks there (possibly the Temple of Heaven, or somewhere nearby). There I came across a group of elderly folk, resting in the shade. It was a heavy, strength-sappingly hot and smoggy afternoon. I joined them for a while, and, although not quite autumn yet, I sat there thinking of how I had seemingly wandered into one of my own poems!

 

 

Autumn –

resting on the Pavilion.

Photographs by Tim Chamberlain