August is ending, the kids (and husband) go back to school next week and there’s a hint of autumn in the back of the air. I’ve enjoyed writing this August poem with its very simple pleasures, and quietly intense high points.
August heat
sullen as a tired dog
falls in streams
of molten bronze.
Bronze doors bar the Roman sun,
and within,
in cool, incensed shade,
the basilica vibrates,
atwitter with voices.
Voices that stir the night hush,
scatter the gathered folds of quiet
and wound with their sharp and thoughtless shards—
sleep flees to wander the dark hills
beyond my dreams.
Dreams begin and end here,
in the half-sleep where the world is grey,
and blue horses are only wishes.
Wishes shoot like stars
in this sky
that spreads overhead
with speckled wings.
Wings, if I had them,
would carry me
on the back of the west wind
away from the setting sun.
Sun in my eyes
parches my throat
and drips, honey-sticky
from my fingers.
Shade slips away—mirage shimmer.
Shimmer, dragonfly,
water-hover,
dip dainty feet in the dwindling stream
where wood pigeons drink.
Drink the silver water, love,
that flows from the hidden source,
and wish for soft hands to hold your face,
soft lips that whisper words of love,
and a life that walks in step
to the pulse of my heart.
Heart is where the home is,
curled about in warmest dark,
furred and feathered
and safe from all harm.
Harm not the land we walk upon,
the water that glitters in its rushy bed,
the air that shimmers in the heat of noon,
for we are only visitors on this blue sphere,
our little lives rounded by dreaming sleeps.
Sleeps the sun, sleeps the moon,
while shadows shift and grow,
and night comes into its own.
Is this how it will be,
when the world rolls into the dark,
a world of frozen shadows,
at the last?
Last night the stars were falling,
drifting from their anchorage
in the shallows of the night,
drawn to some rumoured wonder
below the rim of the sky.
Sky with late summer clouds
that cool the air and hide the sun,
a shadow of what is to come.
Come with me and watch the stars
that litter the floor of the ocean sky
as they fade and die in the daylight swell
of the dark, celestial, flowing tide.
Tide and time
flow unceasing
until the last night falls
and Beithíoch snuffs out the stars
and closes the fiery door.
Door that stands open
to the starry sky
is the one I will gladly pass
with no regrets.
Regrets are for the undecided
who walk with one eye forever on the past,
their feet tread unseen flowers,
their eyes miss the stooping falcon.
Falcon with the yellow eye
look the other way, don’t see
the young rabbit’s excited leap
from burrow into bright day world
this tremulous first time.
Time flows
though the stream runs dry,
the leaves fall
and the birds fly.
Fly south though the sun shines, wise oriole,
and the August heat is fierce,
for the nights will cool,
the wind will change,
and storms buffet the distant sea.
Sea beckons,
so far, so empty,
with no landing place for feathered foot.
I watch these tiny darts of courage,
swallows skimming the river,
hunters building strength
for the so far, so empty,
and I am filled with awe.
Awe-struck, I stand
beneath the coping of the sky
and listen to the hunting owl
chasing a falling star.
Stars grow and thicken,
cluster-spreading,
layer on layer of light,
a night garden,
racing to a boundary
that is not there.
There is a corner
of this wilderness not wild
this tame jungle of bramble and fox-tail,
where the shadows that tremble
are not darkness
but feathered wings.
Wings that flutter
in the dark of the hedge
fill the shadows with movement,
the air with the tremor of life.
Life sings in these poplars
with the wind’s voice
and the voices of the birdfolk.
A buzzard cries, high and plaintive
for her lost fledgling.
Fledgling child
ready to fly
but for the winds of the world,
hover a while,
the sea is wild.
Wild grows the meadow
in this end of summer,
parched and thick with crickets,
cracks yawn,
calling autumn rains.
Rains swell the fallen seeds
a million millions
waiting for rebirth.
I long already for the spring.
Spring lingers
in every acorn that greens and ripens,
calling another spring,
remembering that first birth
an oak tree’s life ago.
Jane Dougherty Writes 