This is how our summer ends, then:

we go to the woods for

one last weekend.

The kids are wild,

full of energy and semi-hysterical

laughter, as if letting go

one final burst of energy

before school pens them in.

We hike and run into a moose,

her loud woofing at us a warning.

At night, the air has the sharp

tang of fires, and sleep grips

us like a drug.

Bacon and eggs in the morning,

one last walk,

and the drive back to the city,

to school, to fall, to darker, earlier mornings

and less freedom, fewer sleepovers.

The loss of summer is a heartache,

a wistfulness, a lump in the throat;

even as the crisp clean air of fall

and the sharpened pencils and

blank notebooks of new beginnings

draw us in.

~

Relephant Read:

10 Quotes to Soften the End of Summer Blues. 

~

Author: Keeley Milne

Editor: Travis May

Photo: Author’s own.