Diwali
This is not my October,
no falling leaves crunchy under my boots –
across oceans they are nearing sleep,
grabbing an extra hour from the clocks.
I can almost smell home
as I stand at midnight, looking from the roof:
saris sparkling in the flicker of a million candles
and people kneeling before a decorated cow.
Christmas: I inhale
the scent of cinnamon, cardamom and cloves.
My glass bangles clink as I walk into the light
and a harvest festival of stars.
,
Valerie Morton’s work has apppeared in various magazines and anthologies in the UK and USA, and has won or been placed in a number of competitions. She has two collections published by Indigo Dreams Publishing – Mango Tree (2013) and Handprints (2015). She has taught Creative Writing at a mental health charity and during 2016 she has been Poet in Residence at the Clinton Baker Pinetum in Hertfordshire. She is a member of Ver Poets and contributed to their Healing Poetry event in October.
Abegail Morley 
This poem is full of the wonderful c-words 🙂 And I love how the glass bangles clink, and how that last couplet is full of light and magic and sound – and how it ends with stars 🙂 x
I love this poem, it’s memory and longing for another place, so delicately said