A few days ago was the first day of autumn. As if a switch had been flipped, it seemed as though the wretched summer weather was turned off. Where I live, there is often high humidity with 70+ degrees Fahrenheit weather every day for nearly three months straight during the summertime, even at night. For those unaware, that is like being in a sauna all the time.
Needless to say, summer is not a pleasant time where I live unless you plan on sitting around, doing nothing. If you have any mind to get up and move, you feel weaker and get tired quicker than at any other time of year. You also sweat like a fountain, even if you are not doing anything. Thus, for anyone who wishes or needs to be active, summertime is a nightmare.
Yet the brutality of summer always makes the end of it all the sweeter. That is what this poem is about. I was moved to write this after taking a walk through the woods for the first time this year in autumn weather. Doing so reminded me how being outside can be a pleasant experience, something I always manage to forget every summer season.
Summer lashes with whips of fire
Each day and night a dreary toil
With no relief, it burns most dire
Summer's snare, a loathsome coil
Yet autumn reminds us of God's grace
For summer's heat is never to last
Always to come is autumn's embrace
With humid anquish left to the past
For all of nature does testify to God
To show His glory and mercy most true
His love, indeed, is no facade
And in all things, it does shine through
When autumn comes, it comes with joy
With a peace found only in the Lord
Restoring the spirit summer does destroy
Such relief, a just reward
In autumn's embrace, the sun is fond
No longer a tyrant in the sky
No more does steam rise from the pond
And no longer does skin cry
Autumn comes with great relief
As colors bloom with deep arrays
The wind does kiss with no more grief
And all is wrapped in Heaven's gaze
Though summer's hell does have its place
For gold is tested and refined in fire
Summer's end does show God's grace
As autumn fulfills all peaceful desire
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