On a weekend
near summer's end
I feel the pressure of time,
the pleasures of an August day
undone
by fun's urgent pursuit,
trying to cram in
all I missed.
How impending fall
makes dwindling summer
more precious yet.
Chilly dawn
when the sun is as sluggish as me,
lingering behind
the line of trees
still half-asleep.
Its light
in a fitful breeze, dappled green,
like a heavy eye-lid
lifting.
And night
that comes too soon, falls too quickly,
insistent days
that will constrict and constrict
all the way down
to December.
When I will look up
from a deep dark well
to catch a glimpse of sun.
So I hope
for Indian summer
before September mellows to fall,
the balm
of cool nights, delightful
air.How impending fall
makes dwindling summer
more precious yet.
Chilly dawn
when the sun is as sluggish as me,
lingering behind
the line of trees
still half-asleep.
Its light
in a fitful breeze, dappled green,
like a heavy eye-lid
lifting.
And night
that comes too soon, falls too quickly,
insistent days
that will constrict and constrict
all the way down
to December.
When I will look up
from a deep dark well
to catch a glimpse of sun.
So I hope
for Indian summer
before September mellows to fall,
the balm
A second hatch of black-flies
the kind that rarely bite.
And the last brisk swim, skinny-dip
in frigid lake, a bracing wind;
goose-bump skin, already beginning to pale
beneath a paper-thin tan.
When the last loon's haunted call
ululates sadly.
Deer, in rut, pursue each other madly,
big bucks
snorting, tussling
blundering through the bush.
And geese, in ragged Vs
wing toward permanent summer,
where they will have all day
to squabble, and graze
and raise their sun-warmed young.
Another of my so-called "nature poems".
I live a pretty solitary uneventful life in a low-stimulation environment. So it's more a case of close observation and microcosm than it is of grand themes, deep emotion, and personal angst; more a case of craft, than an unstoppable torrent of heart and soul.
Poems come to me through the window; poems about nature ...the weather ...the wildlife. It's a case of much of a muchness, so it becomes a challenge to keep these "nature poems" (which are really classic lyric poems -- roughly defined (I think!) as something intensely personal, and grounded in nature) interesting and fresh, worth the reader's investment in time and effort. Which I hope this one is.
Other than that, the poem speaks for itself. Although the pressure to cram in "all I missed" is that much more urgent this year: the year without summer. Finally, a nice weekend. But it's already almost the end of August, and the days are markedly shortening, the nights are too long and cool for the lake ever to warm up, and it seems summer is ending before it's even begun! I can feel it starting on the long implacable descent into cold and dark, and that it will be nearly 10 whole months until summer comes once more. ...Isn't there an old saying that goes something like "not having the sense God gave geese"?!!
the kind that rarely bite.
And the last brisk swim, skinny-dip
in frigid lake, a bracing wind;
goose-bump skin, already beginning to pale
beneath a paper-thin tan.
When the last loon's haunted call
ululates sadly.
Deer, in rut, pursue each other madly,
big bucks
snorting, tussling
blundering through the bush.
And geese, in ragged Vs
wing toward permanent summer,
where they will have all day
to squabble, and graze
and raise their sun-warmed young.
Another of my so-called "nature poems".
I live a pretty solitary uneventful life in a low-stimulation environment. So it's more a case of close observation and microcosm than it is of grand themes, deep emotion, and personal angst; more a case of craft, than an unstoppable torrent of heart and soul.
Poems come to me through the window; poems about nature ...the weather ...the wildlife. It's a case of much of a muchness, so it becomes a challenge to keep these "nature poems" (which are really classic lyric poems -- roughly defined (I think!) as something intensely personal, and grounded in nature) interesting and fresh, worth the reader's investment in time and effort. Which I hope this one is.
Other than that, the poem speaks for itself. Although the pressure to cram in "all I missed" is that much more urgent this year: the year without summer. Finally, a nice weekend. But it's already almost the end of August, and the days are markedly shortening, the nights are too long and cool for the lake ever to warm up, and it seems summer is ending before it's even begun! I can feel it starting on the long implacable descent into cold and dark, and that it will be nearly 10 whole months until summer comes once more. ...Isn't there an old saying that goes something like "not having the sense God gave geese"?!!
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