In September Usually

There is a day when

morning fog lifts to blue

so blue it lowers your eyes and the air

is thin and cool and sweet

with something coming. There is a day

when the hot, heavy drops

that filled the summer air to bursting

have dissolved into smoke from damp oak logs

in somebody's woodstove, and the smoke smells

like something's coming, something like

new school clothes, jack-o'-lanterns, turkey stuffing, first

snow. Ah. And when that day comes

you put away the lawn mower

(prematurely but nevertheless),

you roll it into the barn

alongside the snowblower and go back out

into the blue and shut the barn door

behind you and take in the deepest breath

lungs can hold ah

there is a day.

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