It’s damp and grey and growing colder this late November day. As I sit wrapped in a scarf and vest, chilled at my desk, I’m wistful for summer. She had her time though, and moved on as nature ordains. But I still can’t get used to this coolness. So I sit and write poetry about summer’s heat…
Summer Rests
In brazen exuberance she pleasures herself
Blazing brightly with fireweed’s flare,
Popping poppy’s head into blossom,
Spreading sprawling daisy’s plentiful petals, and
Wringing out penstemon’s purple.
Summer has no shame in flagrantly flowering
She flounces in brilliant fullness, under
The hottest, brightest, and longest arc of the sun
And when what’s done is done for her
There is no disgraced slinking back home
No avoiding being seen too shimmering
Too shiny in the light of day
There just begins a quiet, near invisible coloring-out
Stalks brown, blooms wither and dry
But they stay still round, still tall,
Still the shape of her lushness for a while
At the softest touch they break off brittle,
Mere suggestions of reverie now wound down.
Crumbling flakes of the meadow drift off, now
Residue of well spent frolic and folly.
In that decay, that giving in that
We wish we could ward off
When lupine’s gone limp and black-eyed Susan has nodded off
Then Summer breathes out softly in sated rest