At Summer's End

Remembering Summer

W.S. Merwin

Being too warm the old lady said to me
is better than being too cold I think now
in between is the best because you never
give it a thought but it goes by too fast
I remember the winter how cold it got
I could never get warm wherever I was
but I don't remember the summer heat like that
only the long days the breathing of the trees
the evenings with the hens still talking in the lane
and the light getting longer in the valley
the sound of a bell from down there somewhere
I can sit here now still listening to it.

I can't begin to describe how I feel reading this poem, how I felt when I first read this poem, how it seemed to appear out of nowhere in this moment, the winding down of summer, when I so desperately sought to describe (and remember) how this feels, how summer felt. Wham, there it is this poem, this Merwin poem nonetheless - one I've never seen before and didn't know I so desperately needed.

"The breathing of the trees" just gets me every time. Actually all of that description toward the end of the poem which seems to just perfectly encapsulate summer afternoons - the ease, the light unlike any other time, the vague sounds that seem to arrive dreamily, the nostalgia attached to it all.

I'm going to need this poem come February. I need it now. I love it.