September's Remnant or September Leaves

Here's to the last week of September/summer's embers...

This poem is for we who mourn the loss of sun-warm hours and flowers

Yet eagerly await autumn's ambience and Beauty-brilliant bowers

I had to keep reigning this poem in...

It was eager to become a full-fledged fall poem but not yet!

Let's linger on September's remnant, shall we?

Time enough for autumn to have its way...

I couldn't quite decide what picture to use on this post

so it was just waiting, then I went to get the mail

and in the mailbox was a thoughtful surprise

 dropped off by a friend. 

(I partially blotted the name for privacy's sake)

This bundle reminded me that in a sense

 it is always summer in friendship's world💗😎

September’s remnant slips through cracks of summer season shorn

Where garden plot seems to relax, it’s brunt of bearing borne

Where blue jay’s harsh shriek rends the air where purple asters stream

Where poplar fronds begin to flare and pumpkin lanterns gleam

September’s remnant snares where we cannot undo its thread

Earth’s dusty, musky thoroughfares don glints of gold and red

And while we stare at summer spent, we feel it steal within

Where fingers cannot circumvent the tug of buds worn thin

Thought lingers for a little in past’s precious picture-show

Where time turns lush leaves brittle in its subtle undertow

Each treetop like a candle waiting on earth’s window sill

September’s remnant mantle like a fading canticle

Ah, who can bear to mope where hope pitches its sterling tent

September’s remnant gilds the slope where summer came and went

It dapples orchard limbs and lanes with apples, sweet yet tart

As hunger grapples with the pains that farewell’s pangs impart

The wind is like a busker playing saxophone and flute

Its audiences gather beneath lampposts full of fruit

Longing and satisfaction's sabers flash and clash; crowds roar

Caught on the sparkles of a splash that was and is no more

October loiters in yon brake, eager to be unfurled

And turn summer’s lackluster wake into a colour-world

To gather up September’s remnant in jubilant toll

Turning loss to contentment with beauty out of control

As expectation is fulfilled in autumn’s gorgeous show

As goldenrod turns silver-gilt and woodland-torches glow

With autumn’s awesome tinsel, scarlet, auburn, russet, bronze

Happiness finds fresh footholds as September’s remnant wans

© Janet Martin

Ah, who can bear to mope where hope pitches its sterling tent...