Always, at the end of June,
Nature to me changes tune,
Growing adult with a sterner voice
More funeral-march than croon.
There’s a salty sort of tear
In the muggy atmosphere
Showing summer’s dread already
Of the winter’s numbing fear.
And the grass-heads, turning brown,
On the vacant lots of town
Bring to summer’s gentle visage
Just the vestige of a frown.
Too, the bird’s nest hanging there
Owns a lost deserted air
Just to emphasize the mourning
That the season seems to wear.
In the leaves that sigh and droop;
In the martins as they group
To climb again their height again
And effortlessly swoop;
In the thistles’ rampant bloom
Bringing gentler sisters doom
There’s an undernote of dying
Unadulterated gloom.
But–July is summertime!
August has a comely clime:
Who am I embalming friends of mine
Before they reach their prime?
Let the battle, far from lost,
Walk right to the gates of frost
When, on looking back, I’ll wish in June
I’d left one bridge uncrossed.
by Ray Romine Sunday, July 1, 1945