August surrounds us with
Steady, silent sunlight
And brown grasses waist high
As we fish from the bank,
Rustling through the growth
Of a fading summer:
No sound of birds,
No voices but crickets,
And all else still, motionless,
Except the current
That runs into a deep spot
Where we throw our line and wait.

Having fought through the brush
On an overgrown path,
Soi plain in spring,
We sit hushed in this place:
A last chance to be what we never were,
To give what we never gave,
To learn what we never knew
And to teach what we never taught,
Because we didn't understand.

On this bright day, we think not
That summer's blue will fade
That heedless leaves will fall
White clouds darken
The sun decline
The cold rain weep
The tall grasses bow,
Submit to snow and
The brook freeze to nothing
But a thin, black line winding
Through heaps of ice.

We think not of summer's passing,
Though its end is written everywhere.
We think not of how little time we have left to love
How little time to hold one and other
How little time to share what we have
And shall never have again,
How little time to walk in the garden
Where the lupines and lilies
Have gone to goldenrod and monk's hood.