September

When self contradiction creates a chasm between perception and reality, when action performs without a sense of premeditation, when the gulf between you and it becomes a mere gully, when the animal instinct is raw and uncontrollable:

Come elegant autumn and court my imagination, flirt with perfect poesy and stir summer’s drowsy waft. Not a fall day forgotten, nor a cool evening gone to waste, moonshine, starlight, streaming thoughts lost in the fathomless eons of space, the canvas on which knowledge and creativity combines, the palate on which colors swirl and new pigments are born. September tolls, the summer lolls and all that was sanguine feels winter at it’s heels, only during a Colorado September do the seconds feel like minutes and the minutes feel like hours and the hours, as they turn from green to yellow to orange to brown, feel like days- and what days they are! Days of ago when life was simple, life without distraction, life with the drunkards wit and the mistresses eye. Life, as autumn lingers this near future like a hanging Getz note, that resembles a strong, distilled liquor, it’s potent days and their lasting effects, their dizzying provocations, their intoxicating sights and smells and sounds. Ah to be drunk with life this September ere, to watch with beating blood the migrating birds’ flight south, to enjoy the familiar fall constellations as they slowly creep, smoothly slide, confidently crawl, across the night sky. The foothills a symphony of sound like Fitzgerald prose- awaken, take flight, capture the wild wind called fall, float about and spy, carefully consider her nature, her pigments, find her ticklish places, breathe in her perfumes sweet, tongue her flavors, paint her idiosyncrasies. September in all of her golden arcadia, dressed in her formal glitter, aspen leaves dancing, shivering, hymn singing, rhyme, September secretly secreting sappy syllables that slip slowly down your tongue, that slide in symphonic sounds out your mouth, that silently sink into the leaf laden ground and rattle against waterless roots. The evening air that cools like menthol and satisfies like a woman, September, a patient woman who knows exactly when. Hale moon light, crisp raspberry air and pennant races, its fall and the city poets will daydream at the bases of towering buildings, they will smell the stone and glass, they will hear the sun’s glancing reflection, they will feel the taxi horns and the pedestrians passing words, they will see rhyme braiding and slanking itself down the avenues and alley ways, all the literature, the beautiful poetry swirling, the language of the seasons changing- take wing, find flight and soar above the drowsy drones ! From this familiar vantage autumn cathedral bells peal from within, the smell of paints, ink and dusty novels, the taste of coffee roast mingling, rising, exploding the senses, overwhelming, sprint towards the setting sun slipping behind Pikes Peak, chase the season that’s so quick to fade, fade, fade into the snowy winter near. Sketch September with careful charcoal smears and fill in the gaps with warm colored crayons. Sweet seasonal inspiration! Take hold of this pen and move it as you like, fill these pages with smears and colors, address the fall constellations, whisper to the preparing animals, hark to us, the dreamers and poets, for your voice is tantalizingly right on time, and your song that encourages with subtle notes, that inspires with natural beauty, that seduces with a fall scent sweet and simple, sexy and soft. Alleluia!

And remember this September
who is the voice of her that you hear when you are dreaming
that no matter the weather
which is turning cool and gathering strength and energy
spend every evening
that are still plenty long and lasting and orange above mother Peak
writing poetry
that is the scent of the soul, the keeper of peace, the bearer of all that one needs to thrive.

Poem: "September" James Gagnon
Painting: Charles Partridge Adams, "Looking Across South Park" 1897