Showing posts with label heat-wave. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heat-wave. Show all posts

Thursday, July 5, 2018

A Good Day For Leaf-gazing

It's one of those days...good for leaf-gazing💦
This post also includes a poem by James Whitcomb Riley I often think of on a hot day...
(...or bees)

...where we all wish for a big fig leaf to cool us from the sun
Or a breeze to tease our sweat-drops please, until our work is done
Or a pool 'o cool an' some lemonade an' a leaf-song serenade
An’ a bench o’ grass where we stretch to pass an hour in the shade

© Janet Martin



At Ninety in the Shade

Hot weather? Yes; but really not,

Compared with weather twice as hot.

Find comfort, then, in arguing thus,

And you'll pull through victorious!—

For instance, while you gasp and pant

And try to cool yourself—and can't—

With soda, cream and lemonade,

The heat at ninety in the shade,—

Just calmly sit and ponder o'er

These same degrees, with ninety more

On top of them, and so concede

The weather now is cool indeed!

Think—as the perspiration dews

Your fevered brow, and seems to ooze

From out the ends of every hair—

Whole floods of it, with floods to spare—

Think, I repeat, the while the sweat

Pours down your spine—how hotter yet

Just ninety more degrees would be,

And bear this ninety patiently!

Think—as you mop your brow and hair,

With sticky feelings everywhere—

How ninety more degrees increase

Of heat like this would start the grease;

Or, think, as you exhausted stand,

A wilted “palm-leaf” in each hand—

When the thermometer has done

With ease the lap of ninety-one;

O think, I say, what heat might do

At one hundred and eighty-two—

Just twice the heat you now declare,

Complainingly, is hard to bear.

Or, as you watch the mercury

Mount, still elate, one more degree,

And doff your collar and cravat,

And rig a sponge up in your hat,

And ask Tom, Harry, Dick or Jim

If this is hot enough for him—

Consider how the sun would pour

At one hundred and eighty-four—

Just twice the heat that seems to be

Affecting you unpleasantly,

The very hour that you might find

As cool as dew, were you inclined.

But why proceed when none will heed

Advice apportioned to the need?

Hot weather? Yes; but really not,

Compared with weather twice as hot!

Friday, June 29, 2018

Heat-wave Poem With a Grave Warning!


note; this poem is written with utmost respect for roofers, road-crews, 
and farmers who still stack hay-bales in a haymow!




The green leaf droops where the keen breezes fall
The perky petunia wilts in its pot
The old milk cow won’t ‘co’ boss’ when we call
Where we all have one thing in common; it’s hot

Far away turquoise sea-song monotone
Lures, while we swab salty streams from our necks
Morning-mist melts like a mint ice-cream cone
And high-noon rip-ripples across streets and decks

Sweet tea poured slowly on ice, crackle-pops
Lemonade luster winks in frosted glass
Shadows pool dark and deep where sun-sweep stops
And we seek sweet cool in its shallows of grass

Sprinklers toss two-second diamonds for tots
While brave youngsters shriek and dogs leap and bark
And sidewalks sport red and pink polka-dots
Where popsicles follow us home from the park

…and willows hang limp in the heat of mid-day
And lunch salad crunch is a fork full of bliss
We linger in its mini-holiday
To tickle wee toes and noses with a kiss

Cloud schooners sail by on high seas summer-blue
Time is a fellow, mellower it seems
Where joy is a little boy half-past two
With garden-dirt clinging to bare feet and dreams

Stars slide from heavens to land in our eyes
Stinging us as we heave-ho if we must
The wind finds a foothold and dips and dives
Stirring up dizzying spirals of dust

Some crank up ‘the air’, others turn on fans
Some soak in splashes of laughter and lakes
Some just keep going and don’t change their plans
While others do as little as it takes

Whatever you fancy when a heatwave hits
Whatever your work-wish-swim-fish-treat-drink
Make the most of its sticky, icky bits
‘Cause winter is not as far off as you think

© Janet Martin




Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Heat-wave (Revamped repost)


 Iced Tea, anyone?

Whispered breeze faints in mute, midday heat
Ceasing to strum flaxen spires of wheat
Dubious zephyr slips under the vines
Hazy hush silvers dim,distant skylines
We gather beneath the tall walnut tree
Where leaf-lace heights pool, cool, languidly
The flag droops, dormant like wilted dreams
The heat rolls, steady in rippling streams
As ditches spill over, not of sudden shower
But rain-bow river of wandering wild-flower
Too soon howling gales will shiver our cot
Too soon July pales kissing tender-sweet thought
Too soon its flush fades; a glimmering sigh
In faint whiff of sage and burnished good-bye
Stiff orderlies of Old Man Winter a-wait
Beyond green pond and pale-blue cloud gate
While now children dash in bare-foot revelry
Soon they will splash through childhood memory
Simmering sky-lines spawn thirst for relief
Shimmering corn-rows expand gleaming sheaf
The sun seeks its throne in the azure of noon
Cicada-choirs drone a listless, low tune
Where Dog lays flat in stunted north-side shade
As does the cat; we sip iced-lemonade
Absorbing flavors heady with summer-lust
Salty sea-song medley, ambiance of dust
Mellow malted nectar of middle-July
Cadence of summer slipping up to the sky
For too soon Time turns its shimmering page
Melting its murmur from summer-sweet stage

Janet~

A year ago the weather was much the same. It is July, after all:) I'm off to pick the peas before it gets too hot!

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...