SUMMER’S END (a sonnet for AJ)
Still dark and hush except for crickets’ song,
I step onto the porch and breathe fall air --
peculiar blend of dust and spice. I long
for crisp when summer heat and humid pair
to drape a thick and soggy robe of haze
on lushly verdant meadows, crops, and trees.
All summer nature grows in humid days
and thick hot nights without a smidge of breeze.
But then September comes and with it hope
for bright blue skies and just a hint of red
in maple leaves. Fall harvest ends all growth,
puts summer’s weary, aching bones to bed.
Orion’s in the eastern sky again.
Fall is here. I’m feeling no chagrin.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021
I'm reading this over and over again, marveling at the SOUND of the poem and it's rhythm. I 'spect it's the sonnet form (which I've never tried) and it sounds (to my ears) that you nailed it!
ReplyDeleteI love the elegiac feel (is that partly from the rhythm, too?), which is so fall-like.
Plus, I love those last lines about summer. The sultry lassitude of them really set up the senescence of fall.
Love this.