Wither
I feel an ending
traveling through my bones.
It stops for gas
just short of my liver,
looks for some diversion
a roadside attraction
as it spreads a cloth
under an infested juniper,
making a picnic of fingernails
and rheum, mumbling,
"Damn the bagworms."
How long time seems
in this heat-strangled house
carpentered by a coffinmaker sun,
with no appetite for increasing,
no single cell willing
to grow and not die.
We gracelessly surrender
to the wither
of merciless azure. Even the land,
with its skin drawn taut
as a snake's winding sheet
drying in August's crinkled moult,
knows when to quit.
The newborn rain comes,
leaves flush and spin;
when this red shambled summer
finds its cold-spangled grave,
someone will laugh
up a pumpkin-spiced sleeve
under feckless wild stars
while the goldenrod blooms and my ending
takes a short vacation.
August 2023
posted for Summer's End
Images: Gas, 1940 ©Edward Hopper Fair Use
Native Oklahoma Goldenrod, via okprairie on Pinterest Fair Use
Wow! I can feel the sense of withering, the oppression of the "heat-strangled house", the "coffin maker sun". Your imagery is so original and inspired. Love "the red shambled summer finds its cold-spangled grave." Superb.
ReplyDeleteThank you,Sherry.
DeleteI like the wit in this and always your gift for original imagery and language
ReplyDelete"carpentered by a coffinmaker sun"
"when this red shambled summer
finds its cold-spangled grave,"
Nailed the prompt!
JIM
Thanks, Jim. Good to see you here always, and congrats on your published poems.
Delete"Blue sun" indeedy, reedy weedy & wheezy with some truly marvelous tropes of summer exhaustion that's rendered in land and body both. The dearth of dying's everywhere "in this heat-strangled house / carpentered by a coffinmaker sun," a "wither / of merciless azure." All of this is quotable, laudable in form, rhyme & meter: batted at the sun and swung right back to the weary observer. There's even relief in store, an Indian summer "while the goldenrod blooms and my ending / takes a short vacation." Here's to decent AC til the autumn leaves fall.
ReplyDeleteThanks, B. Hot, strangling summers have been part of my life(and my work) since I moved down here, but age and climate change have given them new teeth, and new methods of wearing things down. But there is a time for every purpose under heaven, indeed, and also, nothing lasts forever. Thanks for the kind words, and your word-giving nudges at dp.
DeleteThank goodness the rain came at the end of your poem. You transported me out of the cold wintery little house in southern Australia to memories of the blistering dry heat of a too hot summer and that longing for some cooler, moist weather - Suzanne
ReplyDeleteI'm glad it said something to you, Suzanne. I envy you the winter, but I know our positions will be reversed soon and I may be cursing snow and ice instead of heat. Thanks for reading and leaving your thoughts.
Delete"taut as a snake's winding sheet" is another of those incredible lines that only you would come up with, and you seem to come up with them at will, although I know it's not that easy. High summer--and I can only try to imagine what that's like where you are--is a relentless, exhausting thing that saps everything of vitality and color. We end up feeling as dry and brittle as the browned-out grass. As you know, it is my least favorite season by a wide margin, and when autumn blows in, I am always rejuvenated and happy. Your end lines speak of this, but add a note of temporary surcease, a slowing of the greased slide, and that gives your poem a particularly complex shade of blue, like good jazz. No one has the riffs like you do, Joy.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Shay. I'm so glad you liked it. And I'm so ready for Fall to blow in myself. One of the blessings that follow the curses here are our long lovely autumns and springs.
Delete"The newborn rain comes,
ReplyDeleteleaves flush and spin;
when this red shambled summer
finds its cold-spangled grave,"
This stanza gave me such a sense of relief after the parchedness of what came before.
But these lines are so exquisite:
"We gracelessly surrender
to the wither
of merciless azure."
I am so ready for autumn too! That's when I feel normal. Though we're having a heatwave in the UK this week. Give me rain and hail any day! :-D
Four a.m., so your poetry, to better see the world, even if it glares back
ReplyDeletePoetry, like old lovers, always looks better at 4 am. Always good to see you here, M.
Deletehah! ain't it the truth ~M
Delete