September When It Comes.

September also goes.
September comes and goes so quickly.  It races through my senses, my memories, my emotions.  It is a month that leaves a fast, clean cut: A cut that heals, but it deep and bleeds bright red.  
It heals.
It hurts, but it heals with no scars.
It comes and goes.
I barely have time to breathe air that isn't August or already October.
September.

There's a light inside the darkened room,
A footstep on the stair.
A door that I forever close,
To leave those memories there.

So when the shadows link them,
Into an evening sun.
Well first there's summer, then I'll let you in.
September when it comes.

I plan to crawl outside these walls,
Close my eyes and see.
And fall into the heart and arms,

Of those who wait for me.

I think I always plan to start anew, and let September in... when it comes...  It used to be a marker of great significance when I was a teacher.  In September I was always a teacher again...  I was a teacher in September.  I would regret that summer ending, but find joy at the beginning of new learning and teaching and knowing and feeling.  That's what teaching is. It is all those things.

I mourn not being a teacher in September.  Every September...  I wish I were starting with new students and new ideas and a new year: I feel that loss inside me... In September.

And then, when my babies were old enough, it marked them going away, each day, into a new school year, which is difficult. I get used to it.  But September is the hardest month.  It forces me to see that my children are growing up, that life is moving on, and we are all getting older...  Older.  


I cannot move a mountain now
I can no longer run.
I cannot be who I was then
In a way, I never was.

I watch the clouds go sailing
I watch the clock and sun.

Time marches on, yeah?  Cliche.  But that's what it does... Tick, tick, tick... Head down!  Forward March... and we hear the cadence of time... whether our head is laying on the shoulder of our grandfather, or resting on a pillow when we are alone.  
I'm alone.  
I'm alone because I am not teaching.  
I am alone every day.  I lay my head on my pillow, and stare out the window, and think of being a little girl.  I think about my babies, (well), being babies, and not fourth graders.  I think about them resting their heads in my arms.  I wonder if my head will ever feel safe on a shoulder another September.  Have my Septembers marched along, and somehow I didn't keep up?  
Damn it.  
I should try to run... to catch up...

Oh, I watch myself, depending on,
September when it comes.

So when the shadows link them,
And burn away the clouds.

They will fly me, like an angel,
To a place where I can rest.
When this begins, I'll let you know,
September when it comes.