Summer is dying.
I hear the voices that thrilled the air fading into chilled
echoes that carry farther but leave the listener with a shiver that reminds of
the hard seriousness of the near grave.
I see the clouds get thinner and higher as if shrinking back and mixing with the blue of the sky to hide from the cold that is sure to come and grip them with fingers of steel and carry them to the ground to land in piles of pure white upon every lawn and rooftop.
I feel the bite of the fresh wind as it laughs by my ears
and whistles through the city streets, catching every blind and deaf fool and
tossing their hair like the thoughts of a troubled artist and the leaves that
tumble across every road, piling against each dirty curb.
I smell the fruit of harvest, and the fields rotting in the
rain that keeps driving and streaming, beating a rhythm that will set the pace
for a busy winter of stamping feet and hearts beating harder as if trying to
exist through a long cold night.
