Commands for the end of Summer 

Rachel Wesztseon, 1967-2009, American

 

 

 

 

i.

Deepen,
leaves, not with what
has made us sorry but
with what was profound about that
sorrow.

 

 

Seed distribution mechanism of a native clematis enclosed in a bag for research.  Mt. Cuba, DE

 

 

ii.

Make me
spontaneous,
gathering winds, but don’t
blow so giddily I teeter
too much.

 

 

 

Pollinator structure for certain varieties of lone bees, surrounded by black-eyed susans. Early Autumn at Winterthur, DE

 

 

iii.

Songs I
listened to all
summer long, accept my
thanks: to regress is not to move
backward.

 

 

The fruit and leaves of a Japanese dogwood (Cornus kousa) in Autumn.  Winterthur, DE

 

 

iv.

Splash of
patchouli on
my wrist, remind me that
in this cauldron there is a world
elsewhere.

 

 

Flower of a Magnolia grandiflora in Autumn.  Baltimore, MD

 

 

v.

Smile! Those
days of humid
agony have earned you
the right to a hundred purple
sunsets.

 

 

Autumn Afternoon, the Wissahickon, 1864, oil on canvas

Thomas Moran, 1837-1926, American Terra Foundation loan to the Ashmolean, Oxford, UK in 2025

The Wissahickon flows into the Schuylkill River which flows through Philadelphia.

 

vi.

Come, fall,
I can feel you
stirring, I can hardly
wait for the things that will happen
come fall.

 

 

 

Autumn moult of a fox.  Gibraltar, DE