The Big Beautiful August Poem

Gardens gone wild, the Perseids, ice creams and darkening evenings

A last blast of summer for me at the local swimming lake

Here we are at the end of August, and so we have our traditional gathering of all of your fleeting August moments, gathered via our weekly community posts. I know I love them all but this feels a particularly beautiful and wistful one, starting with the gung-ho fun of holidays and ice cream, and gardens full of bounty, flowers and butterflies, and then sliding slowly and inexorably towards darkening nights and the first falling leaves. What a month for change.

The looming autumn is the big theme of this August poem, and it was right from the start of the month, as we at first noted its creeping edges lightly, almost like a bit of fun that could be ignored, and then finally, as the month wrapped up, turned to face its inevitability, and even embrace it. In this last week we’ve had a bit of a reprieve here in the UK, with some beautiful, golden late summer weather. But the creeping of the nights doesn’t lie.

There is contained in this poem such an array of feelings and attitudes towards and preparations for autumn that I would urge even the greatest summer clingers to make a cup of something and sit and read it. I think you will find comfort, and some new ways of seeing it all. It made me think ‘oh yeah…it’s really not so bad is it’ anyway.

So, here we go: the beautiful month of August, through stitched together glimpses into your worlds.

Golden fields peppered with massive circular bales and cool, leafy hollow-ways

Lavender and roses going over, the scent of a crushed myrtle leaf

Too many butterflies to count on my many buddleia bushes

Miles upon miles of patchwork fields dotted with sheep and cows…then the sea. On other days swirling mists and darkness akin to a Bronte novel

Brilliant splashes of purple willow herb and scarlet poppies amongst all the green

Carpets of beautiful wildflowers atop Old Winchester Hill. Pink, white, purple, yellow, blue - all dancing in the wind

Coming back from a late run along the seafront in the cool evening air I crossed paths with a badger! We stared at each other for a long moment before it turned and scurried back up the path. A magical moment, both caught out of time on this green corridor as night fell in the city

The first little pink/purple flowers of cyclamen popping up in unexpected places

Crocosmia and fuchsia blocking all my pathways

Supermarkets filled with kids on summer vacation asking their moms for jello and ice cream

A tropical storm tracked right through my city: lots of rain and wind but no devastating flooding where I live. Watching the clouds turn in counterclockwise motion

Finding blackberries with my two year-old granddaughter and her delight at popping them in her mouth, fingers red with juice

Noticing the darker mornings when I get up around 4.30 for a wee. The blowsy, flower-bountiful garden is over and everything looks scruffy and in need of a haircut. Including me

A kingfisher out on the canal, a flash of blue and a splash

Wild carrot seed heads so beautiful in the verges and on walks where I brush grass heads as I weave through meadows

Mercury in retrograde a chaos in nature weather & everyday life - easing as August unfolds with such sunny days

A change in the air at the margins of the day

Harvested the first of this year’s runner beans, whilst watching sunflowers unfurl

This week the wind changed direction, the days suddenly are noticeably shorter cooler crisp mornings and darker evenings

We ventured out yesterday and picked punnets of blackberries; they are delicious and we enjoyed some with our breakfast. Now deciding what to do with the rest, definitely a crumble, possibly some jam

A slight change in the season - the sunrise and sunset not as wide open as before. I struggle with seasonal depression so I'm trying to slowly drink in every instance of the lush, bright and warm summer I can right now

Hanging on to the remaining days of summer with an undercurrent of sadness

So happy the swifts are still here up north in the UK

A quiet chirruping in the garden - a robin. A sign that moulting is coming to an end and they will be out to rule the garden again soon.

The sense of tilting towards autumn in the shortening days, a more gentle feeling in the air

Trying to enjoy the incredible sunrises...but it's mainly due to the forest fire smoke we are once again dealing with here in Washington state

Late afternoon swim at the river lingering on the warm stones until sunset, listening to the harumph of bull frogs

Picking and eating wild blueberries at our campsite on a canoeing trip last week. Watching a movie in my local city park at dusk, eating a popsicle. Picking up the first batch of tomatoes in our farm share

A riot of rudbeckia in the garden, peak bounty at the food co-op

Sprucing up the garden after our return from the hols.

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The garden's gone wild - quince burgeoning, apples ripened and dropping daily, second flush on the early roses and weeds. So many weeds. Another August when I resolve to be a better August gardener next year

Darker mornings this week as I get up for work. A welcome return to breakfast by candlelight, watching the sunrise from the kitchen window, while the rest of the house is still sleeping

That rarest of summer days in the urban garden. Relaxing in the warm sunshine - and not a single person within earshot is using a power tool...

Taking the towels in completely dry, warm, smelling of fresh air

In the Inner Hebrides, we caught the Perseids on a crystal clear night, with the unexpected surprise of a northern lights showing. Just magical

Another row of radish seedlings eaten by the slugs, am trying to accept that watching tomatoes doesn’t ripen them…

Watching the Perseids on Primrose Hill, the half moon setting, brilliant meteors blazing through the warm August night

The first tropical storm system of the year and a couple of other wet weather systems pulled us out of drought, so the roses and daylilies are in bloom again

The turn towards fall is showing up in a shift in the light and the sound of the local university’s marching band practicing for half-time shows and parades

My early starts greeted by hazy mist and fog

Blackberries with my breakfast, and finally a flush of sweet peas to fill my room with the very best scent

Waking up at 5:30 to a red sky and settling down at 9pm to pink sunsets

High piercing cries of red tail hawk harbingers of hawk migration in less than a month, grass heavy with morning dew after cool nights, annuals giving up, Halloween candy appearing too soon

More swifts than I've ever seen in one place before, all wheeling and shrieking. I can only think that means they are gathering to leave, which makes me sad

The mornings are darker, cooler and crisp first thing and in the evening it is gorgeous golden light and shimmers before the sun goes down

Delicious strawberry apples in our local greengrocers, and greengages

Potted mums and sunflowers outside the grocers door. Parents shopping for school supplies and kids picking out backpacks

The calm of a beach amble towards the harbour, ankle deep in the waves' ends, sandels in hand, sunhat on head

Hydrangea bringing colour and glamour to the late summer garden

Champagne mojito and sharing the poshest, zingiest summer pudding for delayed birthday celebrations

The glass door to the garden was all steamed up on the outside this morning. I lit my first candles in the evening

Feel a bit sad as the swifts have gone. I miss them, exuberant and noisy, perfect soundtrack to a hot summers day

Eating a fruit pie after my children picked blackberries and raspberries with their grandma

In the antipodes, the colour of early spring is bright yellow, painted with blooming colonial jonquils and daffodils, and prolific puffball blossoms of the silver and cootamundra wattles

Standing at the kitchen sink this morning looking out of the window at the ivy on the fence... a little wren hopped out and looked straight at me

Listening for birds in the early morning, but hearing only a short burst of children’s voices trailing by on their way to the first day of school

Little patches of white appearing amongst the grey down of the cygnets

Back home after two weeks away to an overgrown weedy but gorgeous garden. Picking forgotten marrows and kilos of plums and feeling overwhelmed by the glut

Lecture theatres transformed into the other kind of theatre, black fabric and bright lights of temporary stages... The wind rattling the walls of the Spiegeltent as writers and thinkers exchange ideas... It's the week I finally went and saw some stuff at the various Edinburgh festivals

Wading through silken spider webs in the crisp morning air to let our chickens out

Feeding sweet peas to eke them out for another week

Summer thunderstorm with a great deal of rain

Roses look ready to enter their hip stage, lavender sheared back, asters and sedum taking their place

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Watching the jackdaws ripping elderberries from the tree near my bedroom window; the witch hazel near the door has started to drop its leaves already

Our Victoria plum tree is laden: picking, jamming and taking to work

Dark purple stains of pokeweed berries everywhere

Geese in V-formation

Feeling soothed by the darker evenings and mornings. The glare of high summer doesn’t suit me as well as the magic and peace of the seasons to come. Autumn has always been my favourite

Days on the beach looking in rock pools and being buffeted by the wind

A red sunrise and misty mornings, trying to hold on to summer

Apples ripening on the trees. Swallows and house martins still swooping and calling

An evening walk on Hampstead Heath in soft drizzle

Blackberry picking and apple scrumping with a friend

Ginormous hibiscus flowers blooming in a neighbor’s yard

I ate an apple off the tree at my allotment. It was delicious

Fat bunches of lustrous elderberries along the canal towpath

An eerie, ominously red full moon rising over the Thames, the colour of a wine stain

Here in Washington state the weather went from hot to fall-ish: grey, rainy, breezy . I'm ready, autumn is lovely and I baked an apple plum crisp to celebrate

My tall, happy sunflowers are at their peak but if I travel on the weekend, which I just did, I’m greeted on my return by broken, headless sunflower stalks and mischievous, smiling squirrels

SPIDERS!!!

Enjoying ripe tomatoes, runner beans and herbs from the garden, and my white cosmos are magnificent

Rearranged weekend camping plans due to the arrival of an early autumn storm with possible snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains

Chilly mornings, debating whether to get a hot water bottle (we are not putting the heating on in august!)

Finally having enough ripe tomatoes to slow roast a tray for winter sauces!

Tumbling blackberries into everything - scones, compote, smoothies, and bags for the freezer to be paired with apples in a few weeks time at crumble season. Autumn is in the air, and I'll be ready for it's bittersweet beauty

Plums, blackberries and apples in a pan with a sprinkle of sugar and a star anise to stew for crumbles, breakfasts on homemade yogurt or to go in the freezer

Chilly mornings. Flowers dying off in their pots. Darker evenings

Not heard or seen the swifts, swallows or house martins this week. Hopefully they are on their way back to sunnier climes now and make it home safely

Feeling weather beaten and blasted after 4 days camping in that wind

Swallows still feeding their last brood, and watching a leaf blow off the lime tree to the ground - the first

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Grey seals frolicking on the shore line on a Norfolk beach

Walking in the company of butterflies along the coastal paths of Pembrokeshire

Dusk early enough now for me to spot bats whizzing about as I get ready for bed

Autumn is waiting in the wings, and I return to drinking baked apple tea as part of my bedtime routine

A blue berry bush that is still giving, creeping out in my pjs each morning to pick just enough to top my porridge

A week of evening firepits, geese flying overhead in formation and picking up windfall apples to make spiced apple butter

My three year old coming home with blackberry stained fingers after every walk, the sound of honking geese and the golden light when hanging out the washing first thing this morning

A quarrel of sparrows flitting in and out of the hedge

A gorgeous week of gentle weather. There’s still a lovely scent from the sweet peas and the roses are full of flowers again. Robins singing, jays screeching and the crows dominating everything as usual

Standing next to the ice cream freezer at my local shop, taking time to choose

As August finally rolls to an end, nature around me feels like it’s having a collective sigh of relief. The light hits different and the air is breathable again

Visiting vivid dahlia fields between squalls of rain, and seeing four buzzards gliding and soaring together, their mewing the perfect soundtrack to the towering grey skies

Dew! Lots of it, wellies needed

The neighbour's children bringing me a bag of apples they'd picked for me

Bryony berries red, holly berries still green

Sun-bleached grasses and seed heads burnished by low slanting morning light, golden against clear blue sky

The first dew-sparkled cobwebs in the early morning, the last few swallows swooping over the field, and daily calls of buzzards floating overhead

The first properly woven spiders web with its creator dead center

A black bear sashaying along the sidewalks, walkways and driveways in my neighborhood with not a care in the world, pots of mums which will hopefully all open, hummingbirds begin to solo travel south

Thank you as ever for your incredible contributions. The poetry of them amazes me every time. I love this beautiful way of marking out the seasons that we have ended up with. Please leave me a comment and let me know how you enjoyed it.

Looking forward to doing it all again for September.