This Feather Floating

This hour along the valley this light at the end

of summer lengthening before it begins to go

W.S. Merwin, Seasons

I read these lines this morning and find in them some consolation for the days that are passing, that are spinning us so surely into fall.

For how better to face the next turn than to capture what is fleeting, to pin it down on the page?

this whisper in the tawny grass this feather floating
       in the air this house of half a life or so