---Because today was the first real September day, crisp and tart. Yellow and blue.

This late September afternoon
          comes tinkling, bejeweled
                    and hennaed like a Bombay bride.
It gilds the lee side of the apples
          bunched and bending the tips of their branch.
It jingles the acorns in their little caps.
And all the randy blackbirds
         carouse deep inside the reeds.
                    Their warbly ecstasy
                              rises in shoals of bubbles
                    that pop in tiny bursts
         against the tart sky.

After the laze and simmer,
         the slow and pallid snuff of summer--
This day shudders on the skin
         tickling gooseflesh under the brush
                    of its silken scarves,
                              its whirling tawny sashes,
                                        its saffrons and its crimsons.

And though the far horizon
         threatens brittle winds
         and marks the stark territory
                   of prickling hungers
                            and pinion scented silence,
On this September afternoon
         the purple blue sky
                  swings like a Byzantine amulet
                            on a satin cord
And every radiant thing sings a last alleluia--
         makes this last accounting
                  the weighing of delights
                            after shaking loose the dross.
Every radiant thing sings--
         Come into the yellow wood
                  into the cupped hand of God.