TO THE LIGHT OF SEPTEMBER
When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or notand for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked groundbut they all know
that you have come
the seed heads of the sage
the whispering birds
with nowhere to hide you
to keep you for lateryou
who fly with themyou who are neither
before nor after
you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the nightperfect in the dew
September 10, 2001
— W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet, Pulitzer Prize winner
