This Then

Milkiness has returned to the sky, with hazy clouds blurring the sunlight but doing nothing to reduce the heat. No rain in those vaporous smears, I think, but should they linger into dark they might make night more sultry than it would be in their absence. Bright hours pass, the air unstirred by any trace of breeze, the leaves briefly trembling only when a bird lands on their branch. I stay in the house, windows shut, and drapes too on the sunny side of the building, I'm waiting for evening to liberate me. The birds flying free tolerate the heat and I feel a bit of envy.

Maybe it will be that even before sunset the house will grow so stuffy and warm that the outside by comparison won't seem the torrid hell it does now. Then I'll go out and sit on the shady back porch and sweat while listening to the crickets who occupy the dense shade under the shrubs and are always the first to begin chirping. Even at that my head will remain as hazy as the sky. It's always this way in this season now. I can try to recall how it once was when I could remain in the heat all day and shrug at the discomfort. I'm glad now I did not know then that it would come to this.

( Sunday Verse )