If you haven't yet noticed, the sun has begun setting ever so slightly earlier.  It's only a minute or two every other day or so, but by the end of the month we'll all be wondering where Summer has gone (there's that time thing again). 
     I've become aware that Autumn is now my favorite season.  Some years ago, when I was still playing and coaching baseball, I lived for Summer.  Not anymore.  I now look forward to the cool mornings and evenings, and the comfortably warm (no humidity) afternoons Autumn offers, even though the season brings a touch of sadness and regret.  I once wrote in a short poem that "...man no more profoundly grieves/  than with the falling of the leaves."  I hope to find that poem and share it here.
     I wrote the following verse in the late 1990s during a week's vacation in Chincoteague, Virginia, home of the annual pony swim.  This is the third and final poem I can legally share from my book A Simple Gift (PublishAmerica, LLLP, 2003).  If you've enjoyed the poems I've posted from the book it is available at www.publishamerica.com.  Sorry for the shameless plug.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy this verse.

August Evenings on the Eastern Shore

 

Something the ocean said about the night,

about its coming sooner than before,

might have offended the great Eastern light,

for early dusk again shades sea and shore.

 

True, water is not one for subtleties,

too often rushing in to fill the void

rather than asking "May I, pretty please?"

No wonder that the Sun would seem annoyed.

 

Do not suppose the daystar ran so soon

in heated anger - stars know not of rage.

'Twas only handing over to the moon

the spoils of a Summer's ripe old age.