An Indian Summer

Indian summer left us as abruptly as it arrived

with temperatures back up to summer’s warmth

at the end of early autumn’s first cold week,

a deep blue sky accentuating the changing leaves,

yellow to orange to red to brown,

forcing us to dig out the shorts and T’s

we’d packed away, no longer necessary

with summer done and gone into the season’s changing,

enjoying now this sunshine arriving, temperatures rising, 

forgetting any chores and projects we’d promised to do,

screens to take down and storm windows to put up,

until this morning, fall returned

with a sky gone white and mottled gray,

a breeze blowing strong the low temperatures’ return,

our collars pulled up tight against the cold,

the weekend but a dream gone, too, in waking, a reminder

of what we’d had barely a month ago, a tease

as we looked ahead to autumn’s season, autumn’s reason

but to take us gradually into the cold and snow to come,

yet for a couple days, a weekend at the lake,

summer returned, rewarding us our diligence,

and reminding us, lest we forget, that nature is like that,

unpredictable, unbound in its course, ever changing,

seasons stopping in their moving forward, moving onward,

seasons stopping to give us a rest in our own courses,

our own seasons, like nature’s, moving forward, moving onward,

unpredictable, unbound, ever changing.