Early morning is warm in an orange blush
without breath from a cool moonlit breeze.
My exhalation is the only suggestion of air
in a room with open windows, still curtains.
Summer trees – still life water color greens
on a hazy blue field of pastel blurs
in two empty and emotionless dimensions.

The beginning of heat, organized by degrees
as blocks of Fahrenheit – Celsiun colonnades –
mass across the landscape in radiant ripples,
floating mirage waves, one after another
distending to each wilted and pale horizon,
piling up in a haze, distant wildfires ablaze,
its onslaught a precision incursion into desire.

I can long for the sweet breath of spring
the cool falling of autumn into its season
even the sharp piercing of winter’s night
to little avail in this advancing heat –
summer’s gift to my waiting life.
I shall learn from its surrounding presence
to still, breathe, water my life’s pathways.

Portland, Oregon – August 3, 2017

Days without rain swimming in summer’s warm bath –
crunching pine needles, spring blooms wilting brown
over dusty dry fissures widening under the heat.
Open windows for the cooling sere night sky
with its silky moon and, at dawn, fresh breezes
before the windows close, curtains drawn
dark and cool within. While out?  Gathering heat
and every hard surface a glare – wall, window –
as white wisps of cabbage moths flutter two by two.

Breathe in the warm still breath of summer
as it lingers through the horizons of the day –
fresh morning bird song to a slip of wind
through leaf flutter at twilight exhalation.
Smell summer in its morning dew and milky dust;
taste it’s strawberry sweetness dripping
into the folds of lips, tongue, throat – falling
down and down into the heart, into the body
into the petals of earth’s flowers spun and rare.

Portland, Oregon – July 25, 2017

Photo is my own – Echinacea in our summer garden.