To the LIght of September

I love early Autumn, just as it turns. The light is slant and golden and there is a dampness in the mornings. At dawn, the windows are slick with dew and trees near our house are loaded with plums, pears and walnuts that have not fallen.

The nights come in, quietly with a grace to them. The air is more mineral and the light grainier,  rationed.

Another thing: the spiders, poised and present, between bins and branches and doors. 

There is a delicacy in these first weeks of Autumn, of leaves and seed heads holding on with a dignity of form. Teasel. Of outlines and structures and a falling away of dressings, ribbons and leaves.

Anyway, a time of beginnings and also reckonings; more so than January. 

I thought I'd share this beautiful poem that captures the qualities of this time of year -  I like the way it directly addresses September. Another lovely poem is Ted Hughes' October Dawn, but October seems far away..here's to September, walking away with her back to us, with skirts of trailing leaves.

To the Light of September

BY W. S. MERWIN

When you are already here

you appear to be only

a name that tells of you

whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though

you are still summer

still the high familiar

endless summer

yet with a glint

of bronze in the chill mornings

and the late yellow petals

of the mullein fluttering

on the stalks that lean

over their broken

shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know

that you have come

the seed heads of the sage

the whispering birds

with nowhere to hide you

to keep you for later

you

who fly with them

you who are neither

before nor after

you who arrive

with blue plums

that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew

Source: Poetry (September 2003).