Green blades grow pale and still

 

Summer Ending

by David Middleton

Green blades grow pale and still
Below this windowsill
Whose clearest panes
A sheer light stains,
Then passes where it will.

The grass's crickets cry,
Compelled to mate and die,
And thus to share,
Though unaware,
In my more chilling sigh.

For here I rock and stare,
Grown old in this old chair,
Alert to what
Crickets are not,
Hope woven with despair.

The first leaves reach my door,
Pecan and sycamore,
As summer ends
And fall portends
What winter knows before.

"Summer Ending" by David Middleton, from The Fiddler of Driskill Hill. © Louisiana State University Press, 2013.