Slowly Silent Ripening

 

I feel it every day now.
Not just the summer heat,
or the oppressive humidity,
but the season's slowing down,
of life, almost imperceptibly,
maturing around me,
the inner preparation 
for changes to come, and
the goodbyes soon to
be said.

The Joe-pye blooms in a
profusion of abundance by the pond,
the mountain mint sways
with the buzzing of busy bees,
and the garden is 
a joyous, jostling, crowded exuberance
of late summer flowers. 
No order I have imposed survives
this season.

Baby birds fill the yard these days,
scratching through the mulch,
darting between shrubs and
foraging through the plant stalks, 
learning to fend for
themselves, 
the most important work of
their lives. 

Singing summer crickets and katydids
provide the soundtrack of
my days and nights,
and barn swallows gather on
the telephone wire from which they launch
into a frenzy of feeding and fattening.
Ruby-throats zip about
on their annual,
energetically-determined
journey south and 
peewees sing their plaintive song
from the nearby woodland.
Soon they will all be gone.

In tidal rivers there is a moment
between the turning of the tides,
a moment of complete stillness
in which no water moves, 
as if the river holds its breath,
gathering itself for what comes 
next, for the movement that
is about to begin. 

So it feels in late summer, 
the time of slowly silent ripening 
and preparation for what is 
to come.
And, in this season,
what, I wonder,
is the slowly
silent ripening
in me?