I think this poem really captures the feel of Indian Summer--trying to hang on to the day's beauty while mourning what we know is to come.
Indian Summer
There’s a farm auction up the road.
Wind has its bid in for the leaves.
Already bugs flurry the headlights
between cornfields at night.
If this world were permanent,
I could dance full as the squaw dress
on the clothesline.
I would not see winter
in the square of white yard-light on the wall.
But something tugs at me.
The world is at a loss and I am part of it
migrating daily.
Everything is up for grabs
like a box of farm tools broken open.
I hear the spirits often in the garden
and along the shore of corn.
I know this place is not mine.
I hear them up the road again.
This world is a horizon, an open sea.
Behind the house, the white iceberg of the barn.
Note: The picture above is Indian House by Eileen Nichols
4 comments:
This is my favorite line: I am part of it migrating daily.
It reminds me to "go with the flow" and follow earth's seasons. I truly can identify with "migrating daily," dealing with what shows up in life as best I can.
I like:
I hear the spirits often in the garden...
I hear them up the road again...
Behind the house, the white iceberg of the barn.
Winter is inevitable and brings with it, its own beauty.
We don't use the term Indian Summer in the South, I think of it as a Great Lakes notion. And oddly enough the way I understand the concept is through an English band, Dream Academy, rather than via a Frank Sinatra Song of the same name.
"It was the time of year just after the summer's gone
When August and September just become memories of songs
To be put away with the summer clothes
And packed up in the attic for another year"
Indian Summer, Dream Academy.
I've never heard that! I read that it first showed up historically in the 18th century.
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