"a glint of bronze in the chill mornings"

When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked ground



From "To the Light of September" by W.S. Merwin. Complete poem is here.

Early Autumn White Birch, Maxfield Parrish, 1936

Happy Mabon