Dèr Mouw: August poem

It’s end of August, Sunday. – Blue-hazed air

round distant pine trees in late afternoon;

toward glowing stubblefield, now fiery-plumed,

from grit-path dust clouds flees a scuttling hare.

Old-fashioned dahlias, like giant taws,

glow the entire length of the farmhouse wall

in perfect line; and chittering swallows call

around the barn, across the path’s wire-gauze.

The sand’s still loose from Saturday’s keen rake;

edged with the cautious footsteps that folks take;

a shadow-point of bean-leaf now quite spare

lies in the path’s traced furrows here and there;

in muffled gusts through the closed window come

fleeting strains played on a harmonium.