Light In August

In William Faulkner’s Light in August, Reverend Hightower marvels at “how that fading copper light would seem almost audible, like a dying yellow fall of trumpets dying into an interval of silence and waiting”* 

In the embers of an August day
I stroll through rows of magnificent dahlias,
waning sun casting muted light on a kaleidoscope 
of unexpected patterns of crimson, yellow, orange and pink.

In the last hurrah of summer
this rich contrast of muted light on dazzling dahlias
is an unexpected harbinger of hibernation,
A time of soulseeing by fresh angles of light,
waiting for outside sun to rise and warm again.

Summer still.
Yet I stroll through this “interval of silence and waiting”*
expecting the gift of harvest and the calm of the cave.


c. Rita H Kowats 8/9/2021