A-a-a-h, A-a-a-u-gust

Whether in the garden or kitchen, 

Whether dawn or dusk

August is a rainbow

Beneath halcyon heaven’s hills

A heath of rainbow ribbon spills

It frills the rills of musky husk

And swells in dells of dewy dusk

Where bulrush drains the creek’s refrains

And troubadour of Time unchains

Pulsed vibrato of cricket lay

And stubble-sweeps where wheat fields lay

Fringed with bronze frond, amethyst pond

And dawn’s silver, mist-kissed Beyond

…where everywhere the keen stare looks

Earth flares with wild-bloom garden nooks

Its splay rivals with arrayed rows

Of corn-bean-beets and tomatoes

We snare its fare in jugs and jars

In pictures framed with daydream-stars

The hazy laze of mid-day droops

And draws chit-chat to shaded stoops

To mingle with green-leafy sighs

A-a-h, August; summer’s paradise

Heatwaves ripple on dust-glazed street

And slows the banter of bare feet

Now dash, now splash, Want’s fathoms fade

In cool blue pool, pink lemonade

And August is the poet’s loom

To weave with gold and purple plume

An echo-lay of days gone by

March-April-May, then June-July

Cat drowses in the pumpkin patch

Breeze browses through corn-tassel thatch

A-a-h August; bees buzz vine to vine

What is fills what was; bloom bells chime

Holly-hock, larkspur, zinnia, rose

A rainbow-ream of petals flows

In drip by drop like tick by tock

Into a vault of ether lock

As summer’s sultry color-world

Is gleaned and shucked and weaned and curled

Into a song of hued delight

To play when all the world is white

© Janet Martin

I always forget just how much I love August in southern Ontario until it is here again... 

(photos below do not do justice to dew/rain-glossed roses, but it does grant a glimpse of the awe in a-a-h!!)