POEM - August Abandoned

And so August ends

With the lazy complacency

Of a three day weekend

We have eaten the bad food

Watched too much football

Pondering now and then

What our choices have cost

The Messiah is playing right now

Maybe not a classic end to summer

But it makes me happy

In a melancholy sort of way

I think this rendition is from the mid-sixties

They did a good job

I get the impression they were enjoying it

I am enjoying this weird day

The early morning hemmed in by fog

Followed by a bright sunny day

Interrupted mid afternoon

By a brief deluge of rain

Maybe we could get a windstorm

And a little hail

Possibly an electrical storm

And just make it completely kooky

Not to mention Seamus Heaney died

Don’t worry

I had to look it up too

He was an Irish poet

Whom I thought I recognized

And I did once I saw his work

He translated Beowulf

The definitive version

            Well, it was the version I’ve read

So it must be good

Colleges use it

Or I wouldn’t have read it

Because one only reads Beowulf

When one is forced to

And I write of all this

Because I also have to translate

Make sense of what the summer said

Rearrange the words

Configure the symbols

Defer to the experts

Consult the old masters

And find the final clarity

At the bottom of a porcelain bowl

Having ingested the frigid contents

The ice creams formerly known as

Heavenly Hash and Mint Chocolate Chip

My favorite chorus starts to play

            “For unto us a child is born!

            Unto us a son is given!”

I sing along silently

            Taking the tenor part

As  August winds down to midnight

And the weather changes

Just one more time