Heartbeat
The earth is aching where I walk and never learn,
her broad abiding back riven and split
by the wedge of heat and maul-strikes of the sun;
she was never meant to look so desolate,
nor the sickle moon give up her soul to burn.
Sere ghosts of a dead storm blow like yellow leaves
to the grassfire hell-combustion at full day's cairn,
bellies swelled on dust and smoke until they heave.
But still I see young hawks on thermal towers,
hear the cricket scrape his withered legs and sing,
know it's a fool who digs a graveyard for the flowers
for life is the deathless husband of these things.
I am an iron weight that soon must drop;
earth is a heartbeat fire cannot stop.
July 2022
posted for earthweal's
Note: Temperatures here in Oklahoma are expected to stay between 100 and 110 through July and into August. We haven't had extended extreme heat like this since 2012, and it was awful then.We pray the power grid holds, the A/C doesn't die and just huddle down and try to make it through the wildfires and heat exhaustion, but many parts of the world are seeing temperatures like these where they have never existed before and are unprepared for its force, enduring great hardship. I extend my sympathies. Take care as much as you can; it sucks, and it can kill.
Images © joyannjones, july 2022
