Last August as barometers fell
and skies spun their pewter webs,
we dreamed of rain. Watching
thirsty Sourwoods blush
Before the light shifted,
we presses that buxom summer
to fill our shelves with bottles
stacked high in bread and butter pickles,
spicy salsa and home brew. Those
dog days courted fat winds out of
Alabama, teased us to seventh heaven
and hid downpours in fox grapes
and persimmons. That year we looked up,
sought safe haven in a farmer's almanac,
and days sailed toward summer's end
within the graceful orbit of Earth.
We prayed like refugees
for any clever idea to reunite
land and sky. Patience sweltered
in us between line dried sheets.
We believed sun-dogs were omens;
that we could pull them apart
like wishbones and find water.
Instead our oracles hid in flowers.
still tucked up in the dry soil
among the warts of a mother bulb.
Come April, they swelled open
right on time - each lusciously wet
and brilliantly blue. Yellow anthers
shivered Jove offerings
to the bees' knees. Now August,
we wake to cool mornings
pregnant with thunderheads
that burst like ripe plums most afternoons.
Our gardens yield a casual bounty;
bullfrogs practice swallowing the pond.
We wish Eden weren't so capricious,
but our wild hearts know better.
We are the fickle ones, and
Paradise meets us here.
and skies spun their pewter webs,
we dreamed of rain. Watching
thirsty Sourwoods blush
Before the light shifted,
we presses that buxom summer
to fill our shelves with bottles
stacked high in bread and butter pickles,
spicy salsa and home brew. Those
dog days courted fat winds out of
Alabama, teased us to seventh heaven
and hid downpours in fox grapes
and persimmons. That year we looked up,
sought safe haven in a farmer's almanac,
and days sailed toward summer's end
within the graceful orbit of Earth.
We prayed like refugees
for any clever idea to reunite
land and sky. Patience sweltered
in us between line dried sheets.
We believed sun-dogs were omens;
that we could pull them apart
like wishbones and find water.
Instead our oracles hid in flowers.
still tucked up in the dry soil
among the warts of a mother bulb.
Come April, they swelled open
right on time - each lusciously wet
and brilliantly blue. Yellow anthers
shivered Jove offerings
to the bees' knees. Now August,
we wake to cool mornings
pregnant with thunderheads
that burst like ripe plums most afternoons.
Our gardens yield a casual bounty;
bullfrogs practice swallowing the pond.
We wish Eden weren't so capricious,
but our wild hearts know better.
We are the fickle ones, and
Paradise meets us here.
-revised 11/17/2013
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