ORIGIN early 17th cent.: via French from Italian gazzetta, originally gazeta de la novità (because the news-sheet sold for a gazeta, a Venetian coin of small value)


Friday, August 28, 2009

End of Summer



















The weather is stiffling hot in Washington DC. After eight weeks off from teaching, I must go back to school on Monday. No complaints, just an ambiguous feeling of wanting this humid mugginess to end while, at the same time, wanting summer to last forever. Crickets chirp loudly and incessantly outside my study window, tempting me to believe that summer will never end. These two poems remind me otherwise.


End of Time

Late August heat,

before the dregs

of a Gulf hurricane

drags its rain

and a chill Canadian breeze

over us,

has the crickets singing

end of time songs.

by Kathleen M. Tenpas


End of Summer

The little songs of summer are all gone today.

The little insect instruments are all packed away:

The bumblebee's snare drum, the grasshopper's guitar,

The katydid's banjo, the cricket's violin,

The dragonfly's cello have ceased their merry din.

Oh, where is the orchestra? From harpist down to drummer

They've all disappeared with the passing of the summer.

by Rowena Bennett