Summer’s Song

Faraway trains     distant planes

the din permeating streets of traffic

sounds,          but summer coming ’round rings

the up-close ruckus of  the landscapers—

lawn mowers the size of un-noise regulated

small cars    go-carts    stand-up motorcycles

the walkabout edgers     the angry mouthed

blowers—     cutting all day

cut off  any sound of  birds.

We yell to each other     our song

of  greeting     any conversation impossible.

The city municipally advertiseant

of its green    broadcasts overtaxed perception

numb     horizon to horizon.

                                                                antistrophe

Horizon to horizon   the guns

draw on what we’re too easily known

for        the poor drawing on their own—

in drive by     show down     or any run

gone bad—     the empty handing over only more

empty           the boarding up another store.

A different kind of overburdened still—

does not respond     a silence all so clear

but unconnected to its senses     its sheer

turning away     making deeper     more deviant a kill.

Trees kept so in line   they all die at once

whole planted blocks—  lawns without a temperature

range of  tolerance     go brown and die before

the black bitter earth receives its rain of promise.

                                                                                     epode

The promise this contradiction of  droughts

reigns us into—    this noise and stillness,

this not listening and not being heard—    that this

too much and empty      be brought harmony

should rule our compasses into that circle

of  self     containment of which the rainbow

arc has always been     all our sign.     our covenant

with the larger whatever     below the horizon

out of  sight     that we not forget

we are hooked     back into     even what we neglect—

                         the head

of  the lost body     found  ’neath the drivin’ iron,

its books,   the profit of it,     the baby born

to the mother of  food—         that has to be fed.