Dylan boy,
lord of all the sleeping towns
the valleys and the mean little houses,
master of the flowering words,
like best bitter they flowed
dark and ripe and full to the top of the glass,
well worth the waiting for you were,
if the masses couldn’t see it
then they too were blind as moles,
you finished up your pint
and left us, empty

September rain  
falling grey on Monday faces
washes out the dusty traces
of August in the air,
coffee mug memories
warm and serene,
muse on the summer it might have been

Faded linen
which smells of straw,
and a shift of corn
in the back of a drawer,
is all that is left
of the girl next door,
she stayed a while
from June to September,
and left fresh berries
to help us remember

Time is a thief of youth and love,
undoer of locks and breaker of promises,
she is the rushing wind
sweeping all before
a restless boiling sea
crashing on an unknown shore

Take a glass of August, to sip at harvest time
a vessel overflowing, with a stem of wilting vines
the final press and corking up of summers cheapest wine,
too sweet, too ripe, too seasoned, with the changing year’s decay,
overblown and blousy with the taste of yesterday

The waving wheat in Picot’s field
is burned to yellow sand,
a harvest tide of buttered rain
salutes the combine’s hand,
one last defiant gesture
before the cut and fall,
bowing at the reaper,
who comes to scythe us all

Ploughed fields and tractor churning
yarrow, nettle, stubble burning
signs of a year at summers turning
blackberry, bracken, meadow sweet
showing the season is almost complete
chiff-chaff, pipit, pecking crows
bring high summer to an early close