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| Bald Eagle (adult) |
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| Bald Eagle (juvenile) |
"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.
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| (Aphrodite?) Fritillary Butterfly |
Here are the previous months' poems:
(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)
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| Barn Swallows Begging for Food |
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| Wait For It... |
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| Success! |
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| Dead Crow's Foot |
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| Purple Coneflower |
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| White Admiral Butterfly |
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| Lil Dude on Pictured Rocks |
