“Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.”

— Plutarch

It seems a little obvious to include a poem about the end of summer, but it is the end of summer and we’ve officially welcomed fall. It’s even more obvious to choose a poem by Stanley Kunitz, but he is one of the great poets whose words, language, and expression I truly love. He paints such a clear picture in a way I would never describe it, and in that “painting” he captures the feeling of the end of summer.

End of Summer

By Stanley Kunitz

An agitation of the air,

A perturbation of the light

Admonished me the unloved year

Would turn on its hinge that night.

I stood in the disenchanted field

Amid the stubble and the stones,

Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me

The song of my marrow-bones.

Blue poured into summer blue,

A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,

The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew

That part of my life was over.

Already the iron door of the north

Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows

Order their populations forth,

And a cruel wind blows.

(Painting by Sara Katz found here.)