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Summer winds away apace,
Like the inexorable tread
Of cattle down a dusty trail
To a busy stockyard.

Summer flowers
Thronging the roadside
Remind me that
Soon they will be seeds.

Geese nest
By the local stream
And parade their half-grown ducklings…
Too soon they will make their journey south.

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Already, I begin to set aside
The slow mellow days
Of work at home; taking up
Preparations for autumn tasks.

Already, I begin to see
My co-workers, in and out
Of the school, busy at their own
Several and sundry preparations.

Some moments are so perfect
We want to hold them forever:
Like the incredible grace
Of a favored child

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Just before he or she
Bursts into adulthood
Flinging aside the dubious innocence
Of pre-adolescence.

Like the moment when
You realize your parent is faulty
Yet so imbued with love for you
That no other regard will match it.

Like the infinite second
When lovers reach ultimate heights
Suspended together in joy
In what seems eternity–

Yet it all ends
It all, all ceases to be
And we pass on to new
To different moments.

We let go, as we must,
Those splendid, perfect moments
To hold them treasured
Forever in our hearts.

To hold them, and take them out
Like precious gems
Like rosaries of rare wood
Telling over the moments in memory.

For when the flowers are scattered
And gone to dead brown weeds;
And the cattle have gone
To their sad, separate destinations;

When the geese have flown,
And the workers throng the hall;
When children have gone laughing
Toward their own epiphanies;

When lovers have scrubbed away
the lingering essences–
The world will yet wind around
To other moments–

To other moments,
Not yet defined.