LIX, LX, and LXI: The Seven Days of June: iii, iv, and v:
To sleep, to wake, to play
To fall asleep in June is quite a feat,
despite what one might first begin to think.
Despite the daze that’s harbored in this heat,
that baulks ones’ vigor well before they blink.
The sheets are sure to sour in the night
from sweltering and furnace-fired me.
That’s one that keeps me up—and then the light
who stays long past his due, we might agree.
But I don’t see the safety that he brings:
the light, a guard to what the eve might hold.
I don’t see what the heat hides in her wings:
the comfort that she wields against the cold.
So, shielded by the pressing gods of June,
I’ll wake and thank them while I watch the Moon.
~~~
And when the night is past, how odd to rise.
No chill awaits one’s feet upon the floor.
No shock to shake the senses or the eyes
when taking that first step beyond the door.
That world before you, beckoning and bright,
so newly so, by all the morns ‘til now.
It seems that only now you’ve gotten sight—
what colors now appear, from whence, and how?
But see: that there’s the shock that shakes you, no?
Not harsh, but beautiful and blessed and kind.
It welcomes, not confronts you as you go,
exposing all the treasures you can find.
By far, the morns of June invite to play.
The friendliest of all the spirits fay.
~~~
Now I could really do this for awhile,
thought I, as once again I tossed the bone.
The porch was warm, the dogs had run a mile,
as back and forth they’d brought what I had thrown.
My feet were hot upon the astroturf,
but cooler than the porch whereon it lay,
which meant that even hotter was the earth
beneath the even hotter asphalt way.
And that meant that for once this year I stayed
beyond the walls wherein I worked and slept.
At last, I’d taken time to stop, I played,
I basked in open air—I was windswept.
The first of all the gods to get me out
was June. Oh dear old heart, what’s that about?