I have a new poem at SOFLOPOJO – or South Florida Poetry Journal* – called “Light in Late September”. It’s a bit of a companion piece to a poem I wrote a few years ago called “Sestina for the Falling Autumn Light“, a variation on the theme of the changing of the seasons, the waning of the light and the gradual entry into the dark half of the year. My birthday falls in late September, so I guess it’s a time of introspection for me. At that time last year I had just returned from a trip to the United States and was feeling hopful about the future of America and the world. The Harris campaign was in full swing, and it really looked like she had a strong chance at not only winning the election but winning decisively. So it goes.

The poem took its initial inspiration from a walk near my house, in Umbria. The sky was doing its usual late summer light show, full of pinks and deep yellows, streaked with the white of clouds like an artist’s brushstrokes. Swarms of gnats gathered in the dusk. Birds cut across the sky in formation. Later I found that Keats mentioned the gnats in his “Ode to Autumn“, and that image made its way into my poem. (In practice, whatever I’m reading worms its way into whatever I’m writing in one fashion or another.) Fiat lux!

*_{For future reference, the poem is in the February 2025 Issue, #36, which can be found in their Archives.}