Seven flies circle,
Trimmers chatter down the block:
The hum of summer.
I listen, silent, waiting,
Breathing in sun and out shade.
Scent of cinnamon
Light slips over the mountain
Cirrus clouds blushing.
Warm wind from the west
Sunlight pours across the plains
Cicadas singing
Four-hundred miles from home
This western land not my own
Fig leaves like fingers
paw feebly through still hot air
and come up with naught.
Too early for fruit to droop,
we must wait past midsummer.
Blackbird headed south
Down to the hawks and kudzu
Six months 'til winter
Redbud and dogwood
feathers bursting from leaf-wait
in the deep of here
underneath cut mountaintops
up and down flooded culverts
A light sighing sound,
Wind slipping through leaf and wing,
The heat's brief respite.
A storm is coming
My ears perk at the crashing
It is almost here
The end of a season near
Fresh rain pours from the heavens