Wednesday, September 1, 2021

August (Poetry + Photos)

Welcome back to my (poetry + photos) series, where I share a poem I wrote about each month and include 10 nature photos I took during that month (of various years). Enjoy :)

Bald Eagle (adult)
Bald Eagle (juvenile)

The word "August" means

"To inspire reverence, wonder, and awe."

August is ripened wisdom,

And sun-browned skin.

It's knowing captured 

Under brilliant sunlight.

In a lifespan,

It's 55 or 60 years,

Where bright stories and humor

Weave life into pain.

It's earned marks of age,

Charming wrinkles,

And a few stray grays,

Sitting on vitality's edge.

The word itself sounds like "autumn",

But it's not there yet.

Just glimpses, at most.

August is that buoyant moment

In the pause before an exhale,

Like cueing up to jump off a rock,

Into a sparkling lake.

It's silent courage springing

Through the knees

And empowering the leap.

In the trees, it's a few spots of red,

Blushing coyly in the midday heat,

Or a few corkscrewing, yellow leaves

Dancing down one at a time,

Slow enough to be captured

In a photograph,

And unaccompanied by others.

In the birds, it's a trickling return

From the north,

One by one, day by day.

It's oriole song falling crystal and fluid,

Hidden by dense canopies of green,

Or Red-breasted Nuthatches,

Standing in for their pale-breasted kin,

To match the coming autumnal aesthetic.

August brings varied weather,

Gusting waves and winds,

Blankets of humidity weaving through

Cricket and cicada songs.

Hot, long, sticky days

Winding down

With dwindling bonfire flames.

Sometimes, there is rain,

Remembered from spring,

But now here to cool, sustain, and relieve,

Rather than to pull forth.

Feel August's fire now,

It's in the skin,

The belly,

And in the heart.

It's in the aging leaves,

The southward birds,

And in the now setting-setting sun.

(Aphrodite?) Fritillary Butterfly

Here are the previous months' poems:

January

February

March

April

(May-July are MIA... potentially because I'm less creative those months with my words, and more action-centered? LOL. Whenever I get them, I'll post them)

Barn Swallows Begging for Food

Wait For It...

Success!

Dead Crow's Foot

Purple Coneflower

White Admiral Butterfly
Lil Dude on Pictured Rocks