a summer longing
There is a poem
That won’t find its way
Through spoken words.
But you might find it
In the way tomato leaves
Dance on the breeze at dusk,
And sometimes you may lean
Your ear against the soil
And understand it.
If you look closely,
Those lines left behind a frog
At the surface of water
As it escapes the hungry snake’s mouth
Are full of it.
Yesterday I caught a scorpion,
Trapped it in a jar,
Only by chance did I not step on it as
I peed under a tree.
I looked at it,
Inside its glass cage,
And it stared back at me,
Or so I like to believe
Because I couldn’t really tell its eyes,
And I realized
What a mess I’ve gotten
Myself into.
For I can’t hurt this
Poisonous
Creature
Which is able to survive
For two years with no food
(As I recently learnt).
But as I said
You can also find this poem
In the way the sun’s zenith
Burns your skin and your will and
The summer dawn is
A place in itself.
Although sometimes you may also feel it
In the way the wood stove
Is lit on winter mornings,
Cold hands, still sore
From chopping wood.
The call of an owl and
The bark of a fox and
The trail of ants on the hot soil and
The sound of growing things and
The shadow of an oak
Dancing and
The scorpion’s hidden eyes
Longing to get back home.
from my daily journal, a year ago today