Summer's End

Shorter days and cooler nights.  Must be the end of summer.  Sunflowers and harvest.  Ember days and Mary-days.  Michaelmas and the gateway to autumn.  September is such a mellow and lovely month.

The Bright Field
R.H. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it.  But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it.  I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to posses it.  Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past.  It is turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seems as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.