Tuesday, July 17, 2012

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...



6 comments:

  1. Hey Janet, this is really great, I love the whole thing but the last verse is just fanatstic. Thanks for the link and for your comments. I can't believe I helped inspire this wonderful poem in any way :^D

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  2. Thank-you rch, you are very kind:) Keep cool! and thank-you for the springboard to the middle stanza!

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  3. What lovely descriptive images here, Janet. Stay safe!

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  4. Thank-you Sara....the main storm passed around us and all we got was a little spit-fall of rain. The evening is...I've got it...SULTRY! (I think of Danny Devito in this weather in the movie Throw Mama off the Train.It won't mean a thing to you if you've never seen the movie:)

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  5. Nearly impossible to pick favorites from this, Janet!!! Wow, you have so many amazing lyrical poems here...

    I DO love this moment:

    "Spiraling sonnets drip from willow limb
    Cicada-locust choirs drone a hymn"

    Such beauty, nature and peace flows from your words.

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  6. Thank-you Hannah, and warm summer smiles to you:))

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I hope you enjoyed your pause on this porch and thank-you for your visit!