On Tuesday grasshoppers,

clicking yellow brown in hot sun.

Longest swim of the season that evening,

this shallow sandy rim of the continent’s deepest lake

cool silk on my skin.

Wednesday a 25 knot northerly with cold rain,

pounding take-offs and touchdowns,

long V’s of geese riding the cold front south,

that rare thin layer of warm water pushed offshore and gone.

Thursday a scouting flight northeast

to the upper Baillie River.

Caribou there, drifting down from the coast,

crossing the border from Nunavut.

As if a border, or a map,

means anything to them.

 

All that matters to them,

to the grasshoppers and the geese,

and to me, just now,

is that summer is ending.