September Or The End Of Our World

Summer broke on our backs.

The red swing performed miracles.

As a gentle breeze sang a psalm,

Of love and summer and days

Quietly drifting away.

On the outskirts of town

A sway of skirts

Flowing about mid-thigh.

Pearly whites beneath sapphire blue eyes.

The days are still beautiful

Full of life and laughter.

But, in the evening the chill wanders in

Changing the sky to a newsprint gray.

In the morning, the fog creeps in

Thick and sweating

Wet with dew.

Foretold by the motley speckled leaves

Lurking from outstretched limbs.

The children know when September arrives,

Like the apocalypse.

Destroying their beautifully dull days

That quietly drift away.

  

Reviews

[Robert Lincoln]

This poem snuck up on me. The images glide by, unattached snapshots, standing on their own. Their cumulative effect, though, is a full, rich portrait of the essential *feel* of the onset of autumn.