Summer’s end. The air motionless.
Languor fills from the outside.
Afternoon dyes the world crimson,
bliss more pure than my blood certainly.

They say the sun won’t last forever.
One day it’ll swell to engulf
the earth as it slowly dies out.

I bite into a juicy orange, filling me
with sweetness distilled from the sun,
releasing joy exploding outward.

I am grateful for this moment of light,
air and openness that shatters darkness
without shadow or enclosure
like the long sigh of summer.
That brief transit of a human timescale.

Stephen Cipot

Garden City Park