'Relax! Relax!'

"Crickets leap from the stubble,   

parting before me like the Red Sea.   

The garden sprawls and spoils. 

Across the lake the campers have learned   

to water ski. They have, or they haven’t.   

Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone   

suffuse the hazy air.  'Relax! Relax!'

Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,   

fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.   

The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod   

brighten the margins of the woods.''

-- From "Three Songs at the End of Summer,'' by the late New Hampshire poet Jane Kenyon.