Month By Month

July

7/ 01/00

Dear Hidden Songbird,

I hear you singing every morning when I wake at 5:30. You make me want to write a poem, little bird—or dance slowly with a woman wearing a stained apron, while mashed potatoes heat on the stove and blackberries ripen along a chain link fence in our alley.

What am I writing? Nonsense!

But it's not like I'm getting grades for this, and I can't be fired from a job. I'm not being judged at all, unless the butterflies who swarm the surface of the lake every afternoon can understand me. If the little buggers can, then I must appear a perfect fool! 

Oh, curse it! Let's write a poem, you and I; air and I. Mountain and I. Ring of peaks around and I.

Birds and I! Words and I!
Alpine pass, crevasse, and I!
Isn't this wondrous weather, dear?
I can't imagine better, dear!
The sky is clear, the breeze is near,
Oh, summer's truly here, I fear!

July, the month when I danced alone.