Yesterday was the first day when I felt that familiar nip in the air. I love summer, and its end made me feel a little lost, but I also love the autumn, so part of me was rejoicing. American poet Caroline Confer knows just what I mean, but she says it so very much better…
Death comes for Summer in August.
He finds her in the garden,
barefoot, with blackberry juice staining her fingers.
Not yet, she tells him.
The tomatoes still split their red skins in the heat.
The bees still strain under the heavy weight of pollen.
Somewhere, a child is running barefoot through a sprinkler,
believing faithfully in an endless summer.
But Summer has always known that Death would come.
Stay,
she begs the sun.
Just a little longer.
But already it is lowering itself behind the trees-earlier now, earlier.
Death does not hurry her.
Together,
they watch the maples set themselves ablaze.
Above them,
the geese cross the purpling sky, calling to one another through the dark.
Summer listens.
Where are they going? she asks.
South, Death says.
Will they come back?
Eventually.
Will I?
she asks softly.
Yes, Death says.
Then why must I go?
Death looks at her-
at the blackberry stain darkening her fingers,
at the last light caught in her hair,
at the fields still warm from the day. Because you cannot stay and remain what you are.
You will return, Death says.
But never as this Summer.
Never this light.
Never these blackberries heavy on this vine.
Never this child beneath this August sun.
The world will have other evenings.
Other fields.
Other children running barefoot through the water.
But this one-
Death looks toward the sinking sun.
This one belongs only to now.
And for the first time,
Summer understands what the child does not
that an hour becomes precious
when you understand there will never be this hour again.
So she spends the last of herself recklessly.
Gold on the fields.
Gold warming the floors.
Gold trembling through the trees.
Until the whole world is shining with the terrible beauty of something that cannot stay.
Then Death holds out his hand.
Summer looks once more at the child, still running through the falling water, still believing the warm days will go on forever.
She smiles.
Let them believe a little longer, she says
And takes his hand.
Those words were just too beautiful not to share on this lovely, slightly crisp day.
You can follow Caroline Confer on TikTok and Instagram and you can purchase her ebook on Amazon and prints of her agonizingly-beautiful poems in her Etsy shop.
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