Late September

For the town that waited, and the life we were ready to begin again.

I know we are well into October now, and late September has already passed, but I wanted to share a poem I wrote back when my husband and I first started talking about leaving Florida for Connecticut. I think, in some small way, my heart had already moved before we did.

After seventeen years of endless summer, I began to crave the rhythm of seasons again, the changing light, the quiet streets of old towns, the familiar curve of roads I once knew. So many of our early memories were made here: long drives past the harbor, movie nights, weekend hikes through Sleeping Giant. Writing this was my way of calling that life back, not just the place, but the feeling of beginning again where something once bloomed.

Sometimes the pull of home is less about returning and more about remembering who you were when you first dreamed.

LATE SEPTEMBER

My heart began to ache for you
in late September—
smiles, arcades, and theaters,
trips to the city,
hikes through a sleeping giant.

So wrapped up in you.

Please, become my early mornings.
Let me have your late nights.

My heart still thumps remembering
when you came to pick me up,
driving past the harbor and marshes.
I’ll remember your long hair,
your smile.

We found ourselves living
seventeen years in summer,
missing late September.

Let’s move back
to where we started.
We’ll make new memories
in an old town—
all my early mornings,
and all your late nights,
beginning and ending again
here.