Things... things happen at the ends of summers.
When hope springs anew from each breeze and fluttering leaf, only to die in frost or fire,
Or flutter away like a butterfly just beyond your reach --
Like a butterfly, or a shark, or a butterfly in shark's clothing.

When you dive into a building to escape the sun,
And basking in air conditioning and a cold bottle of whatever suits you, you see someone you know,
And exchange a few pleasantries because what else is there to do,
Before they're off again to somewhere else and you're off again inside your own head;

Or when the rain comes down in sheets, shimmering sheets,
And you just run through it, or dance if that's what you're into,
Feeling the pattering and the dripping and the cold embrace of wet fabric,
Because it's been far too long and you've missed it like nothing else, or at most one other thing.

Leaving some friends and seeing others once again,
Knowing where you're going and not knowing how you feel,
Being content to sit back and let life take you where it will, because it was going to do that anyway,
Even though later you'll know some of these were the wrong choices.

Neither beautiful as the fall nor charged as the spring,
Summer is its own thing, anticipated and remembered.
A beginning, an end, a being, a void, all the words you might use
To describe something so personal that not even you can convince yourself of what it's all meant.

And when the season closes,
To a cliffhanger or a non sequitur, and then only reruns --
The endless reliving of past lives --
Well, then...

It's the last time in your life or it isn't, and you never know until long afterward.