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To September

Your fields and groves are lushly emerald still;
Your flowers still waft their scents and vaunt their flair;
Your blazing rays still generously spill;
Your winds still gently breathe their balmy air.

But now your verdure slowly, subtly fades
And droops with languor, sated to its fill;
Your days retreat before encroaching shades;
And your breeze bears the tinge of wintry chill.

O fatal messenger! You hail the end
Of the year’s torrid, fecund apogee.
How subtly you conceal what you portend
By proffering its fruits abundantly.

They barely sweeten your most bitter draught:
The knowledge that your tidings are, alas,
Predestined, as were all your tidings past:
This Summer’s days, like all before, must pass.

Too soon it falls to Autumn’s slaying scythe!
Not long ago, May loosed her dewy breath,
Electric with the freshness of new life.
So far it seemed from this impending death.

You prophesy: my cheek must bear the bite
Of icy winds and blush against their burn
In days of weak and fast-declining light
And barren fields awaiting life’s return.

Return! If in your breezes I sense doom,
I hear there, too, a barely whispered word
That soothes: however closely death may loom,
Beyond it—by it—new life is assured.

.

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Goldenrod Field

Golden fields stretch wide, extending,
Though lush green beyond all sight,
Tell the summer’s mellow ending,
Golden days of warmth and light.

Golden waves arising, swelling,
Wafted by the zephyr’s breath,
Never crashing, but foretelling
Golden Autumn bringing death.

Golden heads, star clusters, swaying
Blithely, nodding drowsily,
Heedless of the days’ decaying,
Golden while they yet may be.

Golden land: a fleeting vision
Caught and lost while speeding by.
Fortune showed this rare condition,
Golden time, so quick to die.

.

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Adam Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Northwest Indiana and practices law as a civil and appellate litigator. He has published four books of poetry and his poems, essays, and fiction have appeared in various literary journals. He is also a composer, and his musical works may be heard on his YouTube channel.

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13 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    “To September” vividly illustrates the melancholy of the autumn season, while the ending portends the eternal hope of new life that will arrive with the coming spring. Enchantingly told and beautifully done.
    “Goldenrod Field” created a nostalgic look back for me to when we lived on a farm in the upper Midwest where I could view the goldenrods in autumn driving from the farm to town. The concept of the golden time in nature coupled with the golden time, as I inferred from the last verse, that is so quick to die, is an excellent parallel that I found evocative and chilling, since it fits my perception of present-day reality. I found the rhyming to be impeccable and it greatly added to my enjoyment of your two masterful poems.

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you! Here, too, in what I guess is the “lower Midwest” the goldenrods color the land this time of year — a scene that I thought begged for a poem.

      Reply
  2. Brian A. Yapko

    These are indeed masterful poems, Adam, which feel infused with the dappled glow of early Autumn sunlight through leaves which are just beginning to turn. “To September” skirts drama — there is that “slaying scythe” and hard-truth warnings of the coming winter but there’s an acceptance to this rather than a menace which I appreciate. It’s pleasing that you end with the recognition that “new life is assured.” And your “Goldenrod Field” makes me long for a walk in a meadow. Your decriptions in both pieces are so lush I almost feel these could be paintings. Beautifully done, both.

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you! Your compliments mean a lot to me, especially likening the poems to paintings.

      Reply
  3. Joseph S. Salemi

    Both poems are beautiful, but I especially like the trochaic tetrameter of “Goldenrod Field.” Trochaic meter can be truly fluent, and it is a real rival to iambic fives.

    The fifth quatrain of “To September” is glorious. All by itself that perfect quatrain is a poem. The image of Autumn’s “slaying scythe,” the personification of May with her dewy breath, the use of the word “Electric” in the third line, the threat of “this impending death” — sometimes everything comes together in sheer perfection, and this is one of those moments.

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you! I like the strength trochees convey by leading with the stress (although ironically at the end of the verse they would be called feminine).

      Thank you especially for your comment on “To September.” This is actually one of my earliest poems. Its first version appeared probably 18 years ago (I still remember the exact spot on Indiana University’s campus that inspired it). I touched it up before submitting it here, but the fifth stanza remained unchanged. Even I was surprised when I reread it. It was one of those flashes of inspiration that are regrettably too rare.

      Reply
  4. Cynthia Erlandson

    I always look forward to your poems, Adam. “To September” is a lovely, musically-composed description of one of my favorite themes: the poignancy of such in-between times as autumn, “Predestined, as were all your tidings past….” — and, as expressed in “Goldenrod Fields”, “A fleeting vision, caught and lost while speeding by”. Beautiful.

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you for your kind words. Autumn is one of my favorite times, the final bursting forth of warmth and color and delicious flavor before the cold and death of winter sets in. I always find inspiration in its scenery.

      Reply
  5. Margaret Coats

    Adam, I find your autumn theme most attractively stated in the third stanza of “Goldenrod Field.” The “golden heads” as “star clusters” is an apt picture of the actual flowering plant, yet many words also call to mind heedless human beings. This anthropomorphizing interpretation goes along with Roy Peterson’s finding an image of present-day reality here; the social view is just as compelling as the strictly seasonal. The first word in the poem’s second line seems to be a typo, with “though” where the sense calls for “through.”

    Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you! Especially in my early poems like “To September” I like to find metaphors for human behavior in nature. I was worried back then that they were too veiled, but reading the reactions I see they come through just fine.

      Evan caught the typo first, but I insisted it was “though.” Rereading it now I agree,: “through” is the right word.

      Reply
    • Adam Sedia

      Thank you, James. There’s a musicality in repetition that differentiates poetry from prose.

      Reply
  7. Joshua C. Frank

    Adam, this is great! We do seem to be writing a lot of autumn poems this year… regardless, yours stand out in conveying the imagery and the sadness of the fading away of summer.

    Myself, I like the autumn, with the cool temperatures and the colors of the leaves… summer, not so much. It’s when the colors fade that it gets sad. But where I am, the snow makes the winter better to look at…

    Reply

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