Enter September
The Subtlety of September’s Entrance
The bees don’t know it’s September;
They yet forage on the flowers before the porch
Under a sun shining on, strong as August.
Martins and swallows still flit for flies,
Gather on the lines, unready to leave;
Unconcerned the village is deserted,
Windows shuttered underneath their eaves.
None have truck with the times men impose,
Their clocks and dates; assigning names
To days that are every one the same.
Their seasons do not turn on a tick
So they stay on, as we sadly turn away.
Yes, the kids, and I, are back to school, back to Pamplona after summer spent mostly in the village….
And the above is my lament.
But at least the swallows and house martins had a good year, after a slow start where I was worried we’d have a big decrease over last year. There were plenty of flies around this year, though, (really annoying ones!) after a very mild winter that didn’t seem to kill many flies at all.
A few hundred house martins and some swallows assembling on the lines above the village.
Posted on September 20, 2019, in Ecology, nature, poetry, Uncategorized, Writing and tagged August, autumn, bees, birds, city, clocks, dates, flowers, house martins, inspiration, school, September, summer, swallows, time, village, wildflowers. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
Amazing how they gather. We watch the bee eaters early September, do not see them over finca and then they come to feast. Hopefully they eat flies too! Summer over, enjoy your beautiful north. We are still awaiting rain! South West Spain without enough rain!
thanks! It’s still very warm here – 29˚ im Pamplona is crazy for the end of September. We had some rain but not near enough – the mushroom hunters are chomping at the bit! We did get a flash flood in August that destroyed a lot of local houses. We get bee eaters up here too, but they’re gone by now, I think. A frustrating bird to get a photo of – they don’t like people coming too close. If I stop on my bike under a power line where they’re perched they swiftly fly off!