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Summer’s End
William Swarts

I feel a seething at summer’s end
in the shrill calm of the season’s changing,
the half-hearted undertones of mid-September,
whether it’s from embryos of autumn gales
stretching the womb of a sunless sky,
sucking up the sustenance of air
from the stillness of this afternoon,
or from birds preparing to migrate,
assembling flocks in backyard trees,
shaking limbs as if today was really windy.
I don’t know. I’m restless too, depressed
and more than ready to move on.

—
William Swarts is the author of Harmonies Unheard, Strickland Plains and Other Poems, and Treehouse of the Mind. He won First Prize in the Litchfield Review’s annual Poetry Contest. His poetry has been published in many recognized literary reviews and journals.

He received his B.A. in English Literature from Brown University and his J.D. from University of Pennsylvania. He practiced law in New York City and Paris, France. He also studied with Bolligen Prize-winner David Ignatow at the 92nd Street YW-YMHA Poetry Center in New York City. Swarts lives in western North Carolina.

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