Summer Daze

 

Sparkling with fireflies,

Nights hover with lighting magic,

Sung to by crickets and frogs.

Toolie fog rises, turning cool

Then cold—-

 

Then still—-

Hiding all the scurrying ground,

Back to burrows and shelters

In the still-warm marsh.

 

The morning comes gray—-

Overcast with luscious wet rain—-

The run-into,

Dance-around-in kind.

 

Heat rises again 

Up from the torpid south,

Clashed in fury with  the icy northern  lands.

Spring has vanished.

In the mix

Hot, muggy, sticky,

stifling, wet laden air

Weighs down the day—

Breathing becomes aware

And,

So disturbing,

The rhythms of it—-

 

 Bats are dying,

Losing their place in the order of things.

Bees  swarming

In thousands-fold energy—

Briefly occupy

 The blooming Hawthorn, 

That smells like rotting meat.

Stormy,

Branch tearing, tree breaking,

Red lightening drives in blinding flashes

To ground 

Burning the sweet pastoral green.

It's Thunder—-magnificent ,

Warring and destructive.

 

Gone are the fragile transparencies of Spring.

Summer weighs the gravity of swift changes

With opaque and baroque color.

Everything grows wildly in the precision

Of aggressive nature,

As if for the last time—–

Gaia, furious at her insult,

Medea in her rage,

Clymenestra’s revenge,

Antigone’s justice—-

The tragedy of destruction

Lies haunting the beauties of power.

 

Why do the ghosts appear,

Just at this peak of glory?

Is this the trope of endings?

The gyre

just before —–?

Why does the still white of Winter

seem so desirable just now?

Even so, the light is spectacular,

The shadows deep and green.

Humming birds ruby’d and emerald’d

buzz the porch for nectar

from the saucer-sized floozie flowers—-

Those exotic Chilean blooms in florescent

orange, fuchsia and electric blue,

Those whose erotic hearts hold the promise

of sweet reward.

 

Wild Phlox spreads among the meadow woods,

With collective perfume,

Clean, intoxicating, seductive—-

Pink, lavender, white sirens

calling from the edge

Into the bogs and mire.

At the edges of  manicured lawns grow

The wild things:

Bright and tall, the brilliant yellow

Jerusalem Artichokes and plumed Goldenrod.

Here and there, stretching for acres

New England Asters in lavender fields

Interrupted by white Daisies gone drifting

From once tamed gardens.

Morning Glories and Sweet Peas

Entangle fences and posts—-

Protective mothers around

The meticulous weeded

Rows of Corn, Tomatoes, Zucchini,

Herbs, Garlic, Melons and Squash.

All blessed by flapping Tibetan prayer flags,

For good luck and prosperity.

As if that would fool the Tantric furies.

Feral around the barn’s neglected gardens,

Bright orange and blood red Poppies

Cover pet graves and echo places of war.

Lilacs and Iris, so exquisite and fragrant days ago

Are withered. Gone by—-

In the battles of seasons.

 

Upsetting—- those thoughts,

Until spying

The trellis climbing Concord grapes,

Noble Peonies,

Blue Lupines

And pure white Anenomes

Reaching up and out

Of the weeds, thickets and tangles.

This year the pastures are carpeted with

Tiny white petal’d strawberries

and fragrant blue blossoms  scented  like mint.

Sweet breezes teasing the mind

Caution about scything down

The wild grass.

 

Generations of granite rock walls

Are crumbling in disorder,

Tumbling from their precise placement

Mocking the creations of control.

Pale yellow buttercups and Ladies'  Lace

Grow among the fallen,

Making the old stones safe from re-order.

 

On the cusp of tragedy,

This Summer

Tries to remember comedy

If not irony.

Nothing stops

The tempo allegro  of the goddesses.