Glancing at the title of Geoffrey Haresnape's third poetry collection, Mulberries in Autumn, I immediately want to classify it as late romantic nature poetry, also known in South Africa by the less flattering term of „veld and vlei" poetry. This carries the connotation of marginal white males and females contemplating their own marginality, while the real battles - even after the inauguration of the New South Africa - still seem to be fought on the factory floor and on the streets.   But something about the title resists this easy classification, and then I hit on it: the season seems incongruous. Mulberries bear delicious fruit in spring and give a wonderful cool shade in summer, but in autumn they begin to lose their leaves. Mulberry trees are of course also associated with silk-worms and their metamorphosis from leaf-munching caterpillars to moths. Their cocoons are built of the finest yet strongest silken threads, one of the most luxurious materials in the fashion industry.   But before I spin this thread any further, let us turn to the poem itself on page 19. Here we are confronted by a whole new set of images: a „propped-up ladder", „bush-saws" and „secateurs" .The mulberry tree in question is about to be felled, but this proves to be a more difficult task than the poem's „I" - assisted by his sons who „emerge from the garage armed like knights" - had anticipicated. The poet is „daunted / by the tree's springing and spreading. It's top- / most, tapering poles are bare; but the sap / still flows along its horizontal limbs / to feed the scale-like leaves; some red, some green." He calls for the help of his sons and describes their mock-heroic quest from a distance: „Two persevering princes on a quest, / they break the hydra's hegemonic hold / upon this corner of our garden plot."   Geoffrey Haresnape has given the age-old battle between humans and nature an ironic new twist by situating it in a suburban backyard. But far from considering the battle long won, it makes him wonder what has been lost in this apparent victory over nature. The only thing that remains of the tree is the poet's memory of the „delicate seedling / I planted here to feed their silkworms." He reflects that this imposing hydra was once itself vulnerable to predators: „This tree was once at risk to mandibles / of dragons long since tombed in silken cells."   This could be interpreted as a metaphor for his own sons reaching manhood, but also as a symbol of art entombing a threatening reality in its silken cocoon and transforming it into something light and beautiful.   The stance Geoffrey Haresnape adopts in this poem is typical. He takes an ordinary event in an ordinary setting but stands at a slight distance from it and describes it with almost scientific precision. He does not adopt this stance, however, in order to mask his emotional detachment, but in order to find a way of speaking about emotions that does not fall into the trap of cliche. His language is characterised by honesty combined with wit and a subtle self-irony to soften its blow.   But Geoffrey Haresnape also has a satirical vein which he vents under the name of his Doppelgänger Erasmus Eyeball. Here he continues in the best tradition of William Plomer and Roy Campbell, who criticised the social mores of the colony in their journal Voorslag, and in Cympbell's satirical poem, The Wayzgoose. Geoffrey Haresnape's look into the bowels of a politician in Politikos and the soliloquy of a futures trader in An Investors Dilemma is brilliant, where Hamlet's existential dilemma is reduced to: „To buy or not to buy" .   Among my other favourites in this collection are the love poem West Coast Spring and the poem about his mother Mother and Son. But I will not reveal any more about this book. Discover its many pleasures for yourself.