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.
