No blog entries lately because it has been all I could do to survive the storms and heat of summer. Finally I was able to give voice to my feelings with this poem. Sometimes I find myself channeling the rhythms and language of the Romantic poets, because I love them, especially Blake, Keats, Wordsworth, and Shelley.
SUMMER’S GAZE (The Mole's Lament)
The naked gaze
Of August days
Strips away the subtle shades:
The timid Spring,
The elphin glades.
The brutal sun
The Shining One
Robs every private breath
The lungs possess
Till leaves succumb,
And meet their death.
I flee this heat
On tiny feet
On naked pink and scurrying toes
I dig, I borrow in the loam
Seeking cool and fragrant home.
While in the sky
Great hawks do fly
Regarding, with most bitter eye
The prey below
And limbs that blow
The clouds of pollen to and fro.
These yellow clouds
That blur the sight
This yellow sun that drives the night
From resting place on hill and dale
And strips the fields of summer yields
And burns the skin once fresh and pale.
Summer, with your staggering heat
Crueler more than Winter’s cold
Merciless, your summer storms
Your rattling, shattering skies unfold
Burst and boom through every room
And keep the gentle child afraid
There is no silence in the trees
But drums of wings the insects made.
Sick of light, I long for dark
Lapis, cobalt, purple, ink
Poems writ of indigo
The dome'd void, the stars that wink.
