Summer’s last testament

All the swifts are gone. No matter how long

you scan the dusk, they’ve vanished overnight.

Set your sights lower: eyeball to eyeball

with dragonflies. In brisk vacillation

of glassy wings, glimpse a jewelled turning.

Warm yourself. Level out. Let windows yawn,  

for slowly – like a sigh – the year exhales,

ripens into shape. Its skin hardening.

 

Fructidor: the season of scratched forearms.

Juice-stained fingers pick grass from cycle gears,

burrs cling to footwear after foraging.

Love, time now to re-weave our rambling rose.

Show me where, in August’s shortening light,

I should cut away the weary deadwood.

 

 

ix. 2024