Oh, summer's here when you peer
over your lenses at the oddities -
flies and beetles plopped on your paper,
that white desert of sun-glare -
until Ra's
eye is dark-cloud-lidded yet again,
blank paper dulls to a droll disdain
(yesterday's rain drummed down cloud-bursts
flooding town roundabouts,
today's just a splotch -
an ample sufficiency,
thank you)
and you find a snail on the inner lip
of your recycling bin,
just sleeping, mind,
and your trees are full of little green apples,
tiny brown pears,
beneath them, buttercups,
dabs of pure pigment, shine
taller than goose-grass,
privet and blackberry flowering whitely
(June's virginal extension ) for petite, wild
amber-ginger bees.
Blackbirds clarion more seldom
their intricate mazes of phrases,
but never stint on warning stutters
and the green feathers of the tall grasses
are whitening like smiling grandmothers
standing there, a little bent over,
forgetting what it is they meant to say -
