When hills are crowned with gold where once green held our eager
gaze
When picnic-afternoons we dreamed about hold yesterdays
When harvest-hymns abound in sounds of toil and thankfulness
And flower-heads grow heavy with the spoil of morrow’s tress
When dusk is like a cloak that draws its blue across the air
Then falls across earth’s shoulders as the moon climbs
heaven’s stair
When cricket song trills all day long and first leaves strew
the walk
When bumbling bees go tumbling from zinnia to hollyhock
When hours becomes treasured like a prize we cannot keep
As each becomes the measure of the sighs we smile and weep
When we sweep petals from the porch and pluck fruit from the
vine
And pause a little longer in the preciousness of time
When we have felled its moments, smelled its rose and held
its tear
Oh, then we know as all things go that summer’s end is near
© Janet Martin
