summer reading: poems for September

flowers becoming wild, glints of bronze in the chill mornings, overwhelming beets and white pine needles tingling out.

Sep 06, 2024

September By Grace Paley

Then the flowers became very wild
because it was early September
and they had nothing to lose
they tossed their colors every
which way over the garden wall
splattering the lawn shoving their
wild orange red rain-disheveled faces
into my window without shame

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

September 22, 2013 by Lisa Fishman

Who is summer
spring or other
face    the beets are overwhelming
can't possibly be pickled grilled or eaten
all through autumn   hardly a problem
in the large sense but it's in front of me,
chickens behind me -- Miss White Butt
wanders around all day unlike her sisters, who stay put.

Lots of things float in the air when you're looking    what are they
bits of things, it actually seems like
zillions of things in the bright sun
zipping around, both up from the ground and down
from the sky or whatever
& the white pine needles are tingling out

Transformation by Adam Zagajewski

I haven’t written a single poem
in months.
I’ve lived humbly, reading the paper,
pondering the riddle of power
and the reasons for obedience.
I’ve watched sunsets
(crimson, anxious),
I’ve heard the birds grow quiet
and night’s muteness.
I’ve seen sunflowers dangling
their heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman
had gone strolling through the gardens.
September’s sweet dust gathered
on the windowsill and lizards
hid in the bends of walls.
I’ve taken long walks,
craving one thing only:
lightning,
transformation,
you.

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