An agitation of the air,
A perturbation of the light
Admonished me the unloved year
Would turn on its hinge that night.
I stood in the disenchanted field
Amid the stubble and the stones,
Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me
The song of my marrow-bones.
Blue poured into summer blue,
A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,
The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew
That part of my life was over.
Already the iron door of the north
Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows
Order their populations forth,
And a cruel wind blows.
~Kunitz, ‘End of Summer’
photo: Thimbleberry Bay on Baranof Island around November of 2012, looking toward Bear Mountain and what is otherwise a spectacular ‘hanging’ alpine meadow filled edge to edge with the most fragrant wildflowers during the long summer daylight, now a frozen mass of snow and ice, solidly locked into winter mode for the foreseeable future.