As if …

Summer’s for the grasshoppers, those lazy
happy hedonists whose music plays
backdrop to sun-soaked indolence, hazy
with never-ending warmth and thoughtless days.
‘As if they think warm days will never cease’
Keats wrote (though he meant bees and busyness)
time freed from shackling calendars, and peace
from tight-run schedules and their fussiness.

Ants look ahead, knowing how autumn comes
sneakily sideways: that first morning chill,
the longer-lasting dew, and scattered crumbs
of cankered chestnut leaves, hinting what will
be sudden leaf-fall, gales, the fable turned
to real weather, to the storm that rocks
the house, its roots, reminding us we’ve learned
to hunt for gloves, and vests and thicker socks.

D.A.Prince


If you have any thoughts about this poem, D.A. Prince  would be pleased to hear them