We are delighted with our Fall 2021 issue of Scapegoat Review. After a hiatus, we’re back and thrilled to have work from a group of extremely talented poets, visual artists, and flash fiction writers. Fall is always a time to start curling up with books and enjoy reading outdoors during the changing season and in a cozy room as the weather cools in the evenings. It has been a pleasure for us to read the work in this issue and enjoy the outstanding visual art. The work is challenging, communitive and always interesting. I think that most of us tend to have a favorite poem or piece of art in our lives. I love so many it’s always hard to choose one. But somehow, I keep coming back to a poem from Stanley Kunitz that I’d like to share with you. It’s one of my favorite pieces and am posting it for you to enjoy as you start reading our Fall issue.
End of Summer
Stanley Kunitz
An agitation of the air,
A perturbation of the light
Admonished me the unloved year
Would turn on its hinge that night.
I stood in the disenchanted field
Amid the stubble and the stones,
Amazed, while a small worm lisped to me
The song of my marrow-bones.
Blue poured into summer blue,
A hawk broke from his cloudless tower,
The roof of the silo blazed, and I knew
That part of my life was over.
Already the iron door of the north
Clangs open: birds, leaves, snows
Order their populations forth,
And a cruel wind blows.