With overripe berries
and the last margin of wildflowers
and gauzy-winged dragonflies
skimming a creek
into shimmering rings
above minnows as bright as dimes,
our world seems splendid, immutable.
Leaf by leaf
the stream is laced
with green going to yellow and red
twirling from a colonnade of trees,
down on strips of light.
Near water urging over mossy rubble,
it’s hard to accept it’s all ending.
Parents have died and children are leaving.
Even the birds
ounce their singing,
begin flitting
to cover for night.
And under the late glow of sun,
every place whispers
that it’s time to move on,
that autumn must come
autumn must come,
must come.
—Claude Wilkinson, closing lines to “Summer’s End,” from Joy in the Morning: Poems
Sources/Credits: Photograph-Thank you Andy’s Photography. Poem-Thank You A Poet Reflects and Google Books
melancholy here…
Yes, there was a whiff of melancholy here Makere…
and it is the most beautiful and glorious of seasons. perhaps it creates such a lovely palette in order to show us that beauty continues even with change.
Yes. Period.
“Even the birds
ounce their singing”
Oooo!
🙂 Smiling.
My favorite season,
Mine too Bill.
I miss autumn!
I take it that you must be way South Jennifer?
I used to live in California and I know live in the Philippines 😉
Ahhhhhh, summer all year around. How nice!
Not on summer though, it gets humid and sticky 😉
I bet it does…
sad for some, something to celebrate for others
Yes…
Also my favorite time of year… There’s a feeling of shedding oneself of all but the essentials, returning to the basics–but not before one final, extravagant display–that never ceases to thrill me to my core.
“There’s a feeling of shedding oneself of all but the essentials, returning to the basics–but not before one final, extravagant display” Full stop.
🙂
That’s beautiful!
It is…
Happy Autumn Equinox!
Thanks Alex, you too…
Yes, it must, and it’s a beautiful time for introspection and slowing down. Lovely poem – thanks for sharing, David. Happy Autumn!
It is Vicki. Thank you.
That poem captures exactly how I’ve been feeling this year…with time passing so quickly, with it seeming like we barely had a summer at all, and with the changing of the seasons. It’s the first year that I’ve felt a bit of sadness for some reason. I hear every day the sound of geese flying south overhead in formation…such a beautiful sound and sight, and yet, watching them fly overhead has left me feeling something different this year. I’m seeing time disappear…which is all the more reason to look for the beauty in each season and hold it close. It is true…autumn is a beautiful season.
B eautifully captured Carol. Thank you.
Bittersweet season for me. I love for summer, but I do enjoy those first few months of transitioning to winter. Bare trees, birds in flight, dark, rainy days that slow the pace into more time for reading and writing.
Here in Oregon, fall is coming on quick, a bit early this year, but still bringing its usual gifts.
Oregon, like most of the Northwest, is a wonderful place to be in the fall (and most other seasons for that matter). Consider yourself blessed Debra.
Thanks David, your right and most days, I do 🙂
I have never waited for a season to come & have never really celebrated any season either so even though my mind could interpret the meaning but my heart didn’t react :p I wouldn’t say I was lost in the beauty of the season. Nyah! But despite that I tried seeing the beauty from someone else’s eyes 🙂
No seasons in Pakistan? Never thought of this. You are certainly missing out on another miracle in life…
No seasons in Pakistan? Of course there are. We too belong to this world, David 🙂 Its just that I am not a freak of changing seasons.
Laughing.
There is something so sad about the changing of seasons..despite its promise..
�september: it was the most beautiful of words, he�d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret.�
� Albert Camus