Summer

Summer

 

 

wander, gaze on grass heads three feet ahead

pressed close by the air around

fragmentary movement of specks

raise now the eyes to sloping fields

basking wide, shimmer and hum

 

wrapped deep in heat’s embrace

then balm, darker grass, shadowed cool

the spreading crowns above, chatter and brief flight

now clear the clearing, dry bleaching returns

the path beyond the next weary step

 

a reclining light

stretched tawny over afternoon’s supine flanks

spikey fields newly shorn, now clad in glare

maraud the eyes without pity

ears blessed with silence beyond hearing

 

one cannot discern the colour of the sky

cloudless but white with post-solstice intensity

one cannot recall the feel of cool shade

mere steps after leaving the wood

this place, gorged on heat

 

once was green, soon will be ochre

here a vacuum of sultry suffocation

the cycle’s apogee, extremes in crescendo

one can but recline, resigned to the land’s

mantled, leonine splendour