Death of Summer

The buzzard’s plaintive cry

floats on the breeze in mourning

for the death of summer.

The autumn leaves are weeping, weeping,

falling like tears at the graveside

of a departed lover.  

Seasons come and go as clouds

over the bones of the years gone by;

summer will yet return

to shine on sea and shore.

But the summer of my mortal flesh

will bloom no more;

there now awaits the slow decline of autumn

and the icy, deathly claws of winter.