Summer's Quadrille

We feel a tender beauty-tug
A bitter-sweet caress
As summer, with a mindless shrug
Begins to shed her dress
Choosing instead of emerald green
A gown of red and gold
With petticoats of scarlet sheen
And sashes bright and bold

The azure blue of summer’s eye
Is moody now, and grayed
Across the field her breezes sigh
A restless serenade
While on the cusp of every hill
And by the valley stream
We see the hand of autumn steal
Fair summer’s verdant gleam

She glides across the tousled grass
In pirouettes and twirls
A chattering and buxom lass
Among the trees she swirls
Yet, with each turn her fingers graze
The heavy, shaded limb
Thus setting wooded slope ablaze
In autumn's glorious hymn

Woe to the beggar of the earth
Who pleads for one more day
Or better still, a summer’s worth
Of hours to while away
With staid compliance moments slip
To grace a phantom shore
A fleeting kiss upon the lip
And gone forevermore

We feel a tender beauty-tug
Flamboyant misery
As summer with a mindless shrug
Fades into history
And all that will be left of it
When her quadrille is done
Is but what we have made of it
Her moments in the sun

Janet Martin

I felt it, an excruciatingly blissful 'beauty-tug'.
I drove into town for fuel and from the green tree-lined street
a bold red and orange arm waved to me.