indian summer

We hiked as the sun went down:
the twilight was simple, pines silhouetting against dusk
the darkness came quietly, unobtrusively.

On the way down to the cave, the trail,
or rather, the overgrown bush and branches we crept through,
grew quite steep, and we slid,
our footsteps releasing small avalanches of rock and earth.

The mouth of the cave wasn't large;
planks connecting the outside with the deepness,
water lay beneathe.
(Much less in September than in July, David said.
It's been a long summer.)

I felt spaciousness and caverns,
but where light shone there were walls where I expected rooms,
openings where I expected rock.

We climbed one small chute beside a packrat,
rose to a cavern with distant ventilation hole,
found three bats flying.
All the timber-rat nests had me a bit on edge,
and I squatted, smiling, but shaky,
feeling the eerieness of dynamite holes and darkness.

The walk home, in deep night, took longer (we being slightly lost),
but we kept on, found that hillside field,
followed it to cabin-light.

Well now, the first day of autumn has arrived
but it is still 95 glorious degrees Fahrenheit.

The soccer season ended last night,
and I have said my goodbyes [to my team, to that boy]
and even [one very important] hello [oldest sister-friend].

and I will hold out my arms and welcome Fall,
I will gently let Summer go.