SEPTEMBER SONG


The 1st of September is a firm date, marking the beginning of a solidly constructed month, it marks the end of summer and the beginning of the autumn, or as the Americans call it the fall.[1]

 Not of course that the weather obeys such a clear demarcation line and warm September days infused with a honeyed melancholy drift in through the window, the most poignant and wistful of the year.

September the month of endings, summer romances with people and places waltzing sadly to inevitable dissolution, as the flocks of birds migrate away from the melancholy north. Returning home, suitcases are carelessly disgorged with the hum of normality beginning to be heard again; home.

September too is the month for fresh beginnings, the month for education, back to school, back to college, a month of anxiety and excitement for many young people prior to their first experience of university life and the month for evening classes. A month for  engaging with Russian for Beginners, BTEC Accountancy or Cooking to Entertain, listening to bad poetry written by others and good poetry written by yourself; as the nights draw in, walking home after swallowing great gulps of fresh information musing about that attractive young man in pottery, or the pretty French girl in the poetry class. Evening classes and romance, like mulled wine as we fall, leaves suddenly detached drifting, entranced by their new found freedom, indolently onto the pavement.


[1] Both terms have there attractions, autumn has a musicality to it, whilst The Fall carries with it the sense of descent from the heights of summer of rather more sombre biblical imagery.
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