"September
days have
the warmth of summer in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening
evenings a prophetic breath of autumn. The cricket chirps in the
noontide, making the most of what remains of his brief life. The
bumblebee is busy among the clover blossoms of the aftermath, and their
shrill and dreamy hum hold the outdoor world above the voices of the
song birds, now silent or departed."
- September
Days By Rowland E. Robinson, Vermont.
"September is Autumn at hand and Summer reluctant to leave; it is days
loud with cicadas and nights loud with katydids...It is hot days and
cool nights and hurricane and flood and deep hurt and high triumph.
September is both more than a month and less, for it is almost a season
in itself. It is flickers in restless flocks, readying for migration;it
is goldfinches in thistledown; it is fledglings on the wing, and
half-grown rabbits in the garden, and lambs in the feed lot. It is the
gleam of goldenrod and the white and lavender and purple of fence row
asters, with the bright spangle of bittersweet berries.
September is fog over the river valleys at dawn and the creep of early
scarlet among the maples in the swamp. It is sumac in war paint. It is
bronze of hillside grass gone to seed. It is walnuts ripening and
squirrels busy among the hickories. It is late phlox like a flame in
the garden, and zinnias in bold color, and chrysanthemums budding. It
is the last gallant flaunt of portulaca and petunias defying time and
early frost.
September is the first tang of wood smoke and the smolder of
burning leaves. It is bass and perch revitalized in the chilling waters
of pond and stream. It is the hunter's dog sniffing the air and
quivering to be off to the underbrush.
September is time hastening and days shortening, it is the long
nights of Autumn closing in with their big stars and glinting moon.
September is the wonder and fulfillment and the ever-amazing promise of
another Autumn." Hal Borland
