Ode to July Heat-wave

(if one could one would be here...however, since we cannot live on the beach we listen and look for songs not of the sea)

The whispered breezes faint in midday heat

No whisper strums the locks of flaxen wheat

The devious zephyr slips to cooler climes

A sultry hush noon’s panting quiet mimes

The milkweed staidly flaunts its purple crown

Queen Ann’s Lace weaves through garden’s dull and brown

No drought withers the glorious wild-bloom splay

Of red dead-nettle or loose-strife soiree

As ditches run, not with the warm spring show’r

But with the overflow of wandering flow’r

Some folk declare that it is just too hot

Too soon the howling gale will chill our cot

Too soon the bloom will fade into a sea

Of blue-gold days that never more will be

The orderlies of Old Man Winter wait

Beyond the pond, beyond the pale-cloud gate

While children bronze with leech and crayfish glee

Where green-pool cool forms childhood memory

We scan the rippling sky-line for a hint

Of rain to soothe earth’s pasture-land of flint

Spiraling sonnets drip from willow limb

Cicada-locust choirs drone a hymn

The green of June a brittle out-stretched palm

The oven of high-noon a hazy calm

The dog lays flat in dappled north-side shade

As does the cat; while we sip lemonade

Absorbing flavors rich with summer-lust

The heat, the hush, the ambiance of dust

Oh, drink the malted nectar of July

Too soon we hear its echo of good-bye

© Janet Martin

We are under a severe thunderstorm warning...thus the dead heat is actually spiked by vicious gusts of wind...