Augustan Repose

[rejectomorph]

Perhaps some sacrifice has mollified the sun, as today it no longer made the afternoon intolerable. Shade was once again cool, and passing from one patch of it to another was no longer torment. A pair of hummingbirds gathered nectar from the trumpet vine's flowers as evening neared, and I was able to sit and watch them in comfort. When night fell the air soon cooled. Perhaps best of all I didn't have to run the air conditioner at all today. I now find summer forgivable. My thanks to whoever might have been flung into a volcano to bring about this wonder.

Another wonder the day brought was that the brave feral kitten approached within six feet of me as I sat on the porch, and then remained there alternately napping and looking at me for several minutes. Almost as wondrous, the least-brave kitten snoozed on the lawn only a few feet farther off, and didn't run away when I got up to return indoors. It's amazing what a bit of kitty food can accomplish.

Ready to be amazed by a mild week.




Sunday Verse

Summer

by W.S. Merwin


Be of this brightness dyed
Whose unrecking fever
Flings gold before it goes
Into voids finally
That have no measure.

Bird-sleep moonset,
Island after island,
Be of their hush
On this tide that balance
A time, for a time.

Islands are not forever,
Nor this light again,
Tide-set, brief summer,
Be of their secret
That fears no other.

Comments

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

i'm glad you had a break in the heat and the kittens are getting so used to being near you. :)

merwin! i hadn't seen that one before. at 20, i ran across a bunch of his poems that grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shook me.

[rejectomorph]

In case you missed it, Bill Moyers' interview with Merwin includes him reading a few of his poems.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

oh, thank you! i had no idea he'd been on with bill. i'll listen later. :)