The cricket's chirping changes in September. It gets less frenetic, more melancholic, as if announcing that summer is winding down. The nights turn cooler, and the daylight takes on a thinner, clearer, bluer tone. Even the birdsong diminishes, no longer the passion-filled tumbled notes of high summer, but now a subdued, pensive twitter as if it is time to think seriously about things. And, not yet distracted by apple-picking, pumpkin patches, and goblins, we get a little sad at the change.
A poem that echoes this mood is Stanley Kunitz' s "Touch Me." I saw him read this when it was still in manuscript; I remember being thrilled that a poet in his 90s actually had stuff in manuscript. And this particular poem reminds us that, even though autumn and then winter encroaches, in the heart there is always summer.
"Touch Me"
by Stanley Kunitz. From The Collected Poems
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.