By John Hollander
To lie on these beaches for another summer
Would not become them at all,
And yet the water and her sands will suffer
When, in the fall,
These golden children will be taken from her.
It is not the gold they bring: enough of that
Has shone in the water for ages
And in the bright theater of Venice at their backs;
But the final stages
Of all those afternoons when they played and sat
And waited for a beckoning wind to blow them
Back over the water again
Are scenes most necessary to this ocean.
What actors then
Will play when these disperse from the sand below them?
All this over until, perhaps, next spring;
This last afternoon must be pleasing.
Europe, Europe is over, but they lie here still,
While the wind, increasing,
Sands teeth, sands eyes, sands taste, sands everything.
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It felt like August on this October day. Paul worked from home, so I got to have lunch with him. Adam, who received an invitation to the National Honor Society, remembered the dozen roses to present his girlfriend along with an invitation to the homecoming dance but forgot his lunch in the refrigerator, so my daytime trips out involved bringing him lunch and then picking him up after cross country practice since he'd left his bike at home so he could get the flowers to school safely.
I posted a review of Deep Space Nine's wonderful "Things Past", walked among the neighborhood chipmunks frantically preparing for cooler weather, had dinner with my parents -- I love pumpkin ravioli season regardless of temperature -- and watched Henry IV, Part Two to see Irons and Hiddleston though we saw it recently. I wish I had more invested in the baseball postseason. Here are a few last photos of the Wings of Fancy exhibit at Brookside Gardens from over the summer:
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