Turning
Turning
Days growing shorter
Dark now at 8:30.
Same as mid-April but still summer
Oceans and mountains holding the heat
That our Sun no longer supplies directly.
Ripening
The great riot of growth ended
Fields and pastures turning golden
Seeds dispersing by the millions
Apples swelling on trees
Corn kernels expanding
Squash, beans, melons, carrots
Potatoes, onions, blackberries, acorns
Each in its time
Achieving completion
Ahead of a winter that still seems distant.
Spiderwebs
Tiny ones between blades of grass
Giant ones between trees and tomato vines
Beautiful little predators in each one
Awaiting the vibration of silk
As fishermen await a tug from below
Their season of bounty arrives
As flies and bees complete their short lives
Tucking away eggs and young ones
In stasis to weather the winter ahead.
Crickets
Of all shapes and sizes
Filling the night with their melodies
Replacing the frogs
Whose puddles and ponds have now dried
Varying their cadence with temperature
Gradually slowing
As the nights grow subtly colder.
A subtle change of scent
As the molecules of drying and decomposing
Replace the molecules of growth and flowering
It smells like fall, we say
On a cool morning in mid August
Even as the afternoons are still summer-hot.
Evening sea breezes
That blow well into the night
Wide swings
Forty degrees or more
Sweaters in the morning
Sweating in the afternoon
Desert-like
No real rain for two months now
But the days are counting down.
Smoke
High in the atmosphere
Sometimes a hint in the air
Like a distant campfire
A scent that still brings me joy
Memories from deep in the human lineage
As a scent of home
Of family
Of community
Of civilization
Less ominous this year
With the drought ended
By La Niña.
Summer lasts just long enough
That we are ready for the change
Ready for rain
And frost
And falling leaves
And turning inward
Lighting the wood stove
Tucked away from winter winds.
But first the harvest
Just now beginning
Filling the pantry
Digging potatoes
Curing onions
Freezing corn
Canning tomatoes
Threshing quinoa
Storing squash
Picking and pressing apples
Saving seeds
Two busy months ahead
Life in “squirrel mode”
Our tasks guided by natural timings.
There is a sense of relief
Of completion
Both in our own lives
And in the cycles of nature
We have done all we can
To sow and nurture and water and protect
Plants have done all they can
To flower and set seed
Birds have done all they can
To raise fledglings
Bees have done all they can
To store honey and launch new colonies
And now success or failure is known
And we must simply gather the harvest
Or scatter the seeds
Or teach the young ones to fly south
Wind down the cycle
Knowing that our actions will carry us forward
Feed us through winter
Perpetuate the species
Continue the cycles
That we and all of our ancestors
All of our kin
Have experienced through millions of years
On planet Earth.
I sense the turning
And I am grateful.
Whatever may be afoot in the world
It will be a good harvest
And the woodpile is full
And I am glad to be among the living
On this ancient and remarkable planet.
A perfect verbal travel poem -- beautiful. Thank you, Markael, for sharing so exquisitely.