September

You come, bowed low with burnished glow

Of golden-rod and orchards bent

Whereon you seal upon your reel

The echoes of a summer spent

The purple plume of milkweed bloom

Prepares to spill its silk-spun worth

Like words and deeds, gossamer seeds

Of soundless free-fall to the earth

The dapper sheen of verdant green

Succumbs to amber-gilded sweep

Before the fire of fall’s attire

And woodlands where leaf-ballads sleep

September’s ploy, sorrow and joy

A rustic, roguish pantomime

Of dust’s display; harvest, decay

Like love and longing intertwined

Moments implore, a tug-of-war

Of holding on and letting go

As August slips from fingertips

Into summer’s sweet afterglow

©Janet Martin

 Summer is not officially over for another three weeks but somehow it always feels over as soon as it’s September and another school-year begins.