I was hiking with my husband the other evening, taking pictures of the sunset and listening to the coyotes call to one another across the sagebrush, when I notice the change in light, the shift in the particular shade of blue that defines the summer sky in this part of the country. It’s turned darker, deeper. A color that signifies the change in seasons here on the high desert. A color that, to my eye, means means the beginning of the the end of summer.

The next morning I woke to Eric Nixon’s fine poem, “Peak Summer”,  in my inbox. A little reminder to grab all the summer you can get, before it’s gone.

Peak Summer
by Eric Nixon

We’re steeped deep in summer
And everything around me
Seems to indicate it’ll never end
But still I’m spending time
Looking for the subtle signs
Trying to figure out when
We’ve reached peak summer
When the billion green trees
Start to dull ever so slightly
When the bounty of vegetables
Found at all the local farm stands
Start thinning in quantity and quality
When the Halloween candy
Appears in the supermarkets
And the Back To School! signs
Show up in the big box stores
When the sun sets a little earlier
And gets a little more noticeable
Each night, night after night
Until you start thinking about
How much daylight you’ve lost
All of the signs and all of the things
I’ve been noticing are telling me
That we’re right in the midst of
Peak summer and if I’m not careful
It’ll be completely over
And I’ll have missed it entirely
As the season folds into fall

“Peak Summer” by Eric Nixon from Equidistant. © Double Yolk Press, 2019

How do you know summer’s on the way out in your neck of the woods? Let me know in the comments section.