The heat wave brings euphoria to some: With no desire to hibernate, the lizard Poised keen and energized, flashes his scissored Tongue to assess the climate’s strange perfume. Two yellow butterflies are being wed And climb a shaft of sun to celebrate The sudden opportunity to mate. The gourd assortment teems with overfed Fruit flies and sweaty mold, rotting with glee. I pour a glass of iced verbena tea Cut from the fragrant sprigs along the wall. It feels more like midsummer than late fall.
Is this euphoria or a state of shock? The seasons grow increasingly remote, And time has long run out for idle talk. Hear how the ravens read between the lines, Croaking and chuckling in the dying pines. Some call them crows, but these are raven birds With grave vocabularies, cryptical words, Uncanny acrobatics of the throat. Curiously, they mimic what they mock: The long-lost sound of winding up a clock.