Though bit by bit the mullein blossoms wither and daisy fleabane slowly turns to seed, white cabbage butterflies still sip the liquor of clover—skipping, capering, keen to breed. While sunflowers hang their heads to catch the murmur of bumblebees, and pumpkins put on weight, woolly bears, fueled up on summer’s flora, seek a secret place to hibernate. Vast hordes of them are crushed on roads and highways, quite out of harmony with human haste, their bristles useless, too, against the sparrows which love them (though it’s an acquired taste). Should they cocoon, they will emerge next April and roam the night when bats are on the prowl, yet few will fill the bellies of those mammals which dare not fiddle with a bug so foul. Fields team with asters mimicking the sun god with myriad rays of brilliant blue or pink and eyes of gold to charm the pollinators as day by day the region’s rations shrink. Gone are the cardinal’s whistle, the hummer’s hustle, the robin’s comical hops across the lawn, the mockingbird’s adroit impersonations. So deafening, this quietude at dawn! Black-eyed Susans drop their lemon petals, Sol is sinking fast behind the hill, milkweed down is hovering and dancing, and chickadees fluff their feathers against the chill. _____ (Appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily)