I have been more than a little depressed for a while and can't seem to shake it. So when given the prompt to write a poem about summer, this is what came out:
“Thoughts on a Summer’s Evening”
Not even the summer sun can
cheer my heart. Instead it saddens me
by reminding me of summers long ago
when I was young and my whole life
was before me, and I still believed
that my dreams would come true.
Now I know they will not, cannot,
and so the summer sun only makes me
long for the past that I cannot have back.
This is the autumn of my life.
I did not know it would come so soon,
nor bring so much sorrow with it:
sorrow for chances I couldn’t take
and still cannot; sorrow for chances
I took in desperation that failed
and left me feeling all the more alone;
sorrow for who I used to be, for
who I could’ve been, for who I’ve become.
All too soon, winter will come,
and the icy blasts of wind will
strip the autumn leaves from the trees,
freeze the lakes, and stop my heart.
I would not mind its coming quite so much
had spring’s promises all been met,
the summer of my life long and glorious,
the autumn peaceful and full of love.
But none of this was true,
and I face the winter with only my sorrow
for what might have been, but wasn’t,
and the cruel summer sun that reminds me.
by Carol Berger
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