Three September Poems . . . (and one Haiku thrown in). . .
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Feathers
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This morning I look down:
several wild, blue-grey feathers, fallen
scattered, close together on the ground
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September morning wind
like a wide soft wing, stirs their stillness
slightly, where they lie.
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Goldenrod
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Now the ragged edges of country roads,
groomed pastures and long-neglected fields
blow wild with intense wonders of pure yellow—
—delighting the descending sun,
the sweet, smoky incense
of warm September afternoons
bending slowly, burning brightly, glowing
softly, the old year’s blooms of Goldenrod .
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Cricket
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Late, this cool September night—
—windows open, the broken dark world sleeps.
A single cricket beneath the wall, sings
his strident wild mating music reaching, endlessly. . .
Almost as if the earth is not turning at all,
not turning away from the sun again, as if
time’s seeds are not ticking, nor death
nor blue autumn stars, clicking silently
rising again, over the thin bamboo
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(and one extra, that just “arrived” this morning:)
What Happened?
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A dear old friend
once so close to God,
now she prattles on, and on
about making “six figures”
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–Quilla
Dwindling Summer Days: Goldenrods and Mud Daubers
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From my nature journal. Finally a few dry days, windy and pleasantly warm. The last shreds of morning fog burn off, cicadas start rattling the trees, the air grows loud with thousands of raspy insects singing in the tall grass fields. In the garden, sprawling broad leaves, pumpkin vines ramble through the summer’s rank weeds. A family of young crows keeps arguing deep in the grove of pines. Fat russet apples start dropping from their heavy limbs. In the late-morning distances, a chainsaw gnaws and gnaws, turning an old tree into sticks of winter’s wood. As the year blooms and burns, vast energies of light and heat keep recycling their beauty and their warmth.
Above the garden tall birches fill with the long latesummer winds, a sound like rushing waters. The wide blue sea of sky drifts with flotillas of puffy cumulus like fast white ships, casting quick shadows across the land. We near the edges of September. Daily, the golden arc of the sun slightly descends. With cosmic clockwork, the spinning revolving earth leans away from the nearest star again, bringing another autumn to the northern hemisphere. Already the day’s light is shorter by more than hour than it was in early July, but few of us notice the lengthening shadows until later in the fall. In slow but steady annual procession, the bright florals and deep emeralds of summer turn to amber and gold.
And these are the Goldenrod days, usually the driest of the year. After months of record rainfall, let’s hope so. I remember many years ago gathering the yellow blossoms for dyeing skeins of raw wool in a large cast-iron pot boiling over a wood fire in the yard. Goldenrod (Soldago sp.) gives to the natural fibers a rich but muted yellow-green. Our winter scarves and sweaters had woven in them the warm hues of late summer days.
Now the shed wall whines with the eerie staccato buzzing of the Mud Dauber (Sphecidae), a shiny blue black solitary wasp. She plasters masonry chambers hard against the vertical wall, well out of the rain and snow. “Singing” as she works, she lays eggs deep in the mud chambers, then stocks them with crab spiders, paralyzed with her sting. There they remain until spring, when the wasp eggs hatch with abundant food to get them going until warm weather. These August days I see her glistening twitching body stopping often at the birdbath, sipping enough water to make mud for the wintering birth-chambers of her young.
Rolling high above us these warm late-summer nights, the Summer Triangle glimmers and gleams. Vega, brightest star in the summer sky, sparkles like a sapphire in Lyra the Lyre. At the base of the triangle flies Deneb, tail of Cygnus the wild Swan, winging eternally southwest along the dusty radiance of the Milky Way. At the narrow point of the triad perches Altair, alpha star of Aquila the Eagle. As autumn approaches, the Triangle travels nightly down the western sky, finally setting into the purple mountains of early winter.
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The above article appears in the Asheville Tribune, Hendersonville Tribune, Weaverville Tribune, and Leicester Tribune newspapers under the column “Seasons in the Mountains”, the week of August 28, 2013.
End of Summer
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Now the Goldenrods are losing luster
bending with days, and dust, cooler evenings
down the dry backroads.
As they have for centuries, farmers
burn the timeless fields—the year’s sweetness
of smoldering stubble—drifts away
with wreaths of smoke.
The wide old river runs low this time of year
mostly silent now, sliding quietly down
its ancient wash of stones.
Scribbled black calligraphies of crows
hearken into the sunset blush.
Harsh cries fade with distances, and dusk.
Summer’s last fireflies are twinkling little fires.
Memory tries to kindle, keep what it can—some light
or scent from all that’s gone from us, like smoke.
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–Quilla
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“All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the LORD stands forever.” –1 Peter 1: 24-25
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Images of September
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Asters
Even the goldenrods are gone to seed.
September’s fiery blooms burn down
to silver wind-blown ash.
^
Only asters remain, sun’s last flowers
dance in place: November’s delicate, dying
children, innocent faces, oblivious
ragged amethyst lace.
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How precise, the cool blue shadows
etched, late-afternoon, upon grey stones:
bare limbs of trees, dead weeds,
stems of frozen goldenrods.
Wind’s sharp edge and brush,
the low sun sketches fast.
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Ruach 333, by Quilla 