Cottonwood June Bug

I can smell sage and California
As if she were calico
I can smell cottonwoods
I see gnarled twisted trunks
The emptiness that fills me
Quenches my thirst.

I hear stillness.
It leaves 
A June bug’s solitary ringing,
High pitched in my ears

Images of memory 
To my pensive quiet mind
Yellow prairie grass
A phantom barn
Wavering across my eyes
On this distant, nostalgic land

I see a young, sun tanned freckled boy
With a frayed straw hat
Standing there in faded coveralls
A frog held upside down by its legs
Looking at me
Standing near the shadows 
Of the cottonwood trees
I hear a stillness, 
The June bug’s solitary ringing
High pitched in my ears

I sit very still by a little pool
Reflecting
The summer shadows of the trees
With the light of blue sky
Of this painting in my eye
And I hear a
Stillness, 
The June bug has
Its solitary ringing
High pitched in my ears

I see five black crows 
Fly across the horizon of this 
Lonely sky
Above the grey white 
Bark of the cottonwood trees

Cawing loudly in the stillness
Broken only by the
Stillness,
The June bug has
Its solitary ringing
High pitched in my ears