Fare thee well dear Summer!
Summer it’s always hard to say goodbye to you. We want to squeeze out one last experience, the kayak trip that didn’t happen yet, the peach ice cream cone you can only get in August. This poem captures the contrasting moods of summer, the season with the “brightest weather of the heart,” yet we are always forced to say a bittersweet goodbye to its beauty year after year. Someday the sun and the Son will forever shine on us. Until then we turn our faces toward the lengthening shadows and resolve to embrace crisp and fading leaves.
Sun by Ibn Abi I-Haytham
Look at the beautiful sun.
Rising it shows one gold eyebrow,
plays the miser with the other,
but we know it won’t be
stingy. Soon it will smash its veil
of beauty everywhere.
A mirror of wonder
out of the East
hides again in dusk.
The horizon
is desolate at its escape
and puts on mourning robes,
Falling stars
are tears
of iron.
