Summer’s End
All day there’s been a warning in the skies.
Now, with evening’s gloom too soon arrived,
a swell rolls past the headland, past the ferry quay,
and lifts each anchored boat to test its weight and size.
The east wind, shrouded in a cloak of sighs,
curls through the village alleys, along the harbourside,
to billow awnings, worry heaps of unswept sand,
breathe cool air across sun-tempered thighs.
You and I, pretending – though all the signs say otherwise –
that summer lingers still with us, sit with cocktails at the waterside.
But now, beneath our feet, the pontoons start to shift and rise,
and we are made to realise we are not on firm ground.
Summer is over. Autumn has arrived.
