September’s almost over. There’s an ever-growing moon.
Low temps are touching 40s, and the yucca are in bloom.
The great Goliath beetles are still clicking here and there,
But many are now on their backs, just kicking in the air.
The robins, who would wake us up before the morning light,
Are nowhere to be seen or heard. I miss their sound and sight.
The hummingbirds, once numerous, are fewer every day.
The mantises who preyed on them are praying that they’ll stay.
The breeze that was so welcome in the roasting summer air
Is now a colder blast that makes us add a second layer.
The crunch of leaves beneath our feet — an annual autumn sound,
As trees begin to cast their summer wardrobes to the ground.
The leaves in that old cottonwood are rattling in the wind.
The frost of fall approaches, and we’re at the summer’s end.
Up in the sky, too high to see, the cranes cry in their flight,
Level with the tops of mountains coated now in white.
And, out there on the mountainside, the rutting bull elk call.
I’m going up to see them, now. I dearly love the fall.


From A Bard in Boots (Arizona Cowboy Connection, 2023).
Used here with the author’s permission.