Sweet smell of phlox drifting across the lawn—
an early warning of the end of summer.
August is fading fast, and by September
the little purple flowers will all be gone.

Season, project, and vacation done.
One more year in everybody’s life.
Add a notch to the old hunting knife
Time keeps testing with a horny thumb.

Over the summer months hung an unspoken
aura of urgency. In late July
galactic pulsings filled the midnight sky
like silent screaming, so that, strangely woken,

we looked at one another in the dark,
then at the milky magical debris
arcing across, dwarfing our meek mortality.
There were two ways to live: get on with work,

redeem the time, ignore the imminence
of cataclysm; or else take it slow,
be as tranquil as the neighbors’ cow
we love to tickle through the barbed wire fence
(she paces through her days in massive innocence,
or, seeing green pastures, we imagine so).

In fact, not being cows, we have no choice.
Summer or winter, country, city, we
are prisoners from the start and automatically,
hemmed in, harangued by the one clamorous voice.

Not light but language shocks us out of sleep
ideas of doom transformed to meteors
we translate back to portents of the wars
looming above the nervous watch we keep.
~Rachel Hadas, “The End of Summer” from Halfway Down the Hall: New and Selected Poems.

For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past…
Psalm 90: 4

Each summer that passes feels more urgent; most of my summers are far behind me and I have no idea how many more are ahead. I try to take each day slowly, lingering in the moments yet time speeds ahead, irredeemable.

I tend to forget that Time, which feels so precious and burdensome to me, is of no consequence to an infinite God who built an infinite universe. He began it all with a Word, and despite all our human efforts to thwart and even destroy a perfect Creation, He remains a constant presence, guaranteeing the sun will rise again.

We are not alone; we are not abandoned. We are loved.

Good night, love! May heaven’s brightest stars watch over thee!
Good angels spread their wings, and cover thee;
And through the night, So dark and still,
Spirits of light Charm thee from ill!
My heart is hovering round thy dwelling-place,
Good night, dear love! God bless thee with His grace!
Good night, love! Soft lullabies the night-wind sing to thee!
And on its wings sweet odours bring to thee;
And in thy dreaming May all things dear,
With gentle seeming, Come smiling near!
My knees are bowed, my hands are clasped in prayer—
Good night, dear love! God keep thee in His care!
~Frances Anne Kemble