“Then a severe frost succeeds which prepares it to receive the voluminous coat of snow which is soon to follow; though it is often preceded by a short interval of smoke and mildness, called the Indian Summer.” Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crèvecoeur

Jean de Crèvecoeur, a French-American soldier who later became a farmer, first recorded the term Indian summer in his 1778 Letters From an American Farmer. We continue to use the term to describe unseasonably warm, summer-like weather that precedes the frost of winter. A short interval of smoke and mildness. For me, sometimes this interval is as good as it gets.

As I was walking the rural roads of southern Iowa last week, I noticed the recent roadside mowing. The county crews had been out for one last job, and as I walked, I plowed through thick piles of grass clippings. I couldn’t help but mourn summer’s roadside bounty: wild chicory, trefoil, Queen Anne’s Lace, tiger lilies, foxtails. Until today, when I came out of mourning and rejoiced. Summer wasn’t giving up. Summer was still showing up. God bless Indian Summer.

 
Last Mowing
  
 After the last mowing,
 the grasses shorn nearly to the earth along Mink Road,
 the wild chicory and Queen Anne’s Lace bloom quickly.
 Their slender stems hold blue violet heads and bridal bonnets
 on doll-sized versions of their summer selves.
 At three or four inches, they are no less lovely
 than they were in late June.  
 In the early days of September,
 they refuse to give in, refuse to welcome the autumn
 that is sure to come.
  
 I walk with my head lowered.
 I can’t get enough of these tiny soldiers
 who muscle through grass clippings and roadside waste.
 These are September’s heroes who have forgotten their place,
 who insist on singing even as the cottonwoods and maples
 drop their leaves.
  
 Today is not a good day to die, they say.
 Today, the world is not enough without us.
 Today, we sing.