Summer Is Failing

The fields have run to seed

– brown weeds dying in the depths.

Oak trees have begun a gentle shed

– first leaves to bud are first to die,

they sweep across the roads and into the dirt.

We will all lie down in the dust.

Mind yourself now, mind your head

The days are slipping

And our ways are waning.

We will no longer be a sea-sand culture,

swollen and painful like

rippling waves above a hot tar road

We will see the twinkling of the stars,

the true blueness of the sky,

like bruised flesh against our skin

and find comfort in the chill.