After this long dark summer,
I feel the lightness of autumn approach.
The sun is slipping
And the leaves fall
In love with the cooling earth.

Sometimes you have to surrender -
It doesn't matter what
Your plans were, how you feel,
You just have to go with down with
The sun, in layers of coloured silk.

After our hot dry summer
How come I love you even more?
Why doesn't experience dim, or
Familiarity wither? Why do I
Sense my roots mingling with yours?

Our pain, like our sweat, binds us
Closer. You made me angry and
Jealous. But I'm not mad.
Like the leaves I fall
In love with your cooling earth.

Peter Jukes 2006

Without saying good bye
People leave us,
Without saying good bye
Emotions go,

Without a bye or leave
The seasons pass
Like this:

Without saying good bye

2005 Peter Jukes:
translated (with help from Edyta Zalewska) from the Polish of Julia Hartwig

Lord, it is time. The summer is overcooked.
Time to wrap up the sundials in shadows,
and over the stubble, let the wind loose.

Force the fruits to fatten on the vine,
a few more days of voluptuary ease,
fill them to the limit, and then squeeze
their last sweet moments into heavy wine.

Who hasn't a home now will never have one.
Who is alone now will be so forever
and sit, and read, and compose long letters
and loiter the avenues, up and down
like dry autumn leaves, and never settle.

Peter Jukes: a version of Herbsttag by Rilke