The year moves on and the season turns, heading out as if on a shifting tide. September forms a boundary between summer in its waning days and the approach of autumn.

After forty-six years Tivoli Day is an annual end-of-summer celebration of Oak Bluffs.

At the seventh annual Darkness into Vineyard Light Suicide Preventation and Awareness Walk, dozens of participants gathered before the dawn Sunday at Bend in the Road Beach.

The changing of the seasonal guard is told not in the skies but in the lands and the sea around us. The gathering of fall turns thoughts ahead to the golden weeks of late September and soon October, to warm days and cool nights, to high ocean skies and flecks of glitter in Island waters.

Ah, September. The haze lifts from the skies and spectacular sunsets arrive. Fishermen restock their tackle boxes and line the shore in search of the elusive monster striper.

Blue September sky stretched wide over the Edgartown Lighthouse Saturday, where families gathered for the 23rd annual Ceremony of Remembrance.

The place to be for first weekend in September was Owen Park in Vineyard Haven for First Friday. The festivities had pop-up food and artist vendors, and live music on the beach.

The sights and sounds of September measure the Island year better than any calendar. Look to the longer evening shadows under a sinking sun.