It is September

 

 - A Poem for Abby -

It is September, and a cool breeze

reminds us of summer’s passing and autumn

just around the corner, blowing in. The kids,

if they haven’t yet, will be starting school soon,

the sounds of football and marching bands in the air

and the days, growing shorter, darker before dinner,

dusk and the streetlights coming on, lighting our way

home to the memories of our own Septembers,

summers passing and autumn just around the corner,

the squeak of new shoes on a linoleum floor, chalk dust

coating our fingers and wiped on new trousers, the warning

to keep them clean, as we practiced our letters and numbers,

adding them up and subtracting them, times tables memorized,

learning to divide, readying us for the divisions yet to come

in the years ahead, loves lost and old friends gone, retired

to Florida, snowbirds, or gone the way of life, dying early,

leaving us alone, remembering in the cool breeze of September.