HIGH SUMMER BLUES

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.