Prairie in Summer
It’s summer.
Not because the calendar tells me so,
nor the thermometer.
It’s the pulsing buzz of the Cicadea.
A lazy rattle
that rises and falls,
rises and falls,
rises and falls.
Once they start,
we sink into a different feel;
we settle into summer.
I remember living in the city
with a tiny plot of grass in the back yard
and a lone tree
that struggled to live.
Our row of houses backed up
to an elementary school,
with half a block,
on our end,
of concrete
for basketballers.
There,
in summer
I’d pretty much lose my will to live,
in the heat
and humidity
and air pollution.
And then I’d hear the Cicadea
in that lone tree in the backyard
singing through the relentless slap
of basketballs on concrete.
And I would
come back
to the prairie
and the hot, dusty breeze
and the steady rhythm
of summer days.
I’d stop resisting
and settle down,
settle into
the sizzle of summer.
