When summer drops her azure gaze
It seems the whole earth knows
The scope of her allotted days
Is drawing to a close
As violet waves and golden streams
Don somber cloaks of rust
And petals drop forsaken dreams
To sepulchers of dust
Now stillness threads limbs, bare and stark
Where just a glance before
Bird-song and breezes tuned the park
And laughed on summer’s shore
The timbre of June's lilting mirth
Has lulled into a moan
As unseen fingers strip the earth
Of summer’s flowered throne
The flaming sumac steals the show
Her bold disdain is brief
Soon her bright, crimson tears will flow
With summer’s trampled leaf
Into a sea of seasons past
To tune the harps that play
Where every little leaf is cast
On shores of yesterday
Janet Martin