September, as usual you came, disguised of late August, and merging into October you will fade away. You beginningless, endless month, as if inebriated by the grapes’ odour your rays will sweeten last. You were more accurately sung by Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, the poetess of vertical and horizontal lines drawn by words; her mind more geometrical than she probably thought it was, than she wanted it to have been. She and her Dionysus, their encounters in the long shadowed red afternoons of calmness restored by even temperatures. You’re the month of our highschool teacher of literature Tavares, who holding his realistic pipe smoked his Sophia’s secret away onto us: ‘If you want to impress your teachers at university, tell them of her lines.’ And he told us how it worked for him, and we proved that it worked for us. Yes, we raised high expectations when we mesmerized our first year teachers. As if we were meeting a newcomer, exhibiting our best personality traits, September—seduction. You’re also the month of beaches being deserted before time, of a tame Atlantic before its wrath. And finally I must confess to you that you’re nothing but my memory of you each time we meet again, each time you try to pass unnoticed. The change of weather patterns will mark your face until you cannot be recognized any longer. But before that time is come, let us press down your grapes with bare feet: surrender us your juice.
