Blue Mountain Arts Poetry Contest

September Baby
by Kassie Jones Blakelock

Fifth Contest
SECOND Place

I thought you would be
carried and delivered
in heat and sweat 
with shimmering, wavy lines
rising from the car as
we rushed to the hospital.

But then, here comes September.
Geese are beginning to honk
    getting restless,
    ready for change.
Shadows are longer now,
everything is golden.
Afternoons smell like cornhusks,
soybean pieces float down like ash
into the wading pool.

Finally cool
    not sticky
Flies come in through the holes 
in the screens.
Evening beckons, urges, pleads
for families to play outside.
School buses, golden, make
mothers wait for their
babies to come back.
Changing. Growing.
No longer babies, but children.
Nature. Natural.
Like the geese flying off
to grow 
    and change
and finally returning home
over and over.

September baby born 
before the leaves turn
gold and crimson
When Summer and Fall wrestle
for control of heat
    and growth
and whether to unfold the quilt at night.
September brings my baby,
ripens the crabapples.
I smell cinnamon and smoke.
I want to cross-stitch.
I feel my mother
    when the wind blows. 
I feel my baby moving
    almost done
        in September.