Battered and Fried

Enervated by heat, I sit in unstirred air where buzzing insects whirl and swoop. Two dozen or more poppies are a bright explosion amid the quickly browning grasses. Chatter of birds gives way to chirping of insects, and yet there is barely a hint of cooling. Despite closing my eyes and trying to think of rippling streams in shaded dells, all that comes to my mind is the long, dusty path of summer stretching to a red-hazed horizon. I'm grateful for two things: the absence of wildfires and the sudden appearance of tiny buds on the jasmine which promise the imminent arrival of scented blossoms. If this is May, July will leave me a desiccated husk.

( Sunday Verse )