Summer Days
by Richard Greene

          I

Night having gathered the haze
woven by the heat of day
come dawn
has laid it to ground
adorning web and blade
with bright beads
while the sky,
stripped of its veils,
stuns with blue nakedness.

          II

Leaves stirred by a breeze
cast shifting patterns
of sunlight and shade
on our kitchen table
recalling
a torpid summer day
almost a lifetime ago,
nets of sunlight
wavering on a boathouse wall
woven in green water.

          III

Over ninety Fahrenheit,
fans flailing in the house,
butterflies busy in the garden
extracting coneflowers’ pollen cache,
a flurry of butterflies,
some a modest white
others blue
or gaudy orange,
like confetti tossed in a sudden gust.

Above the house
clouds pile high,
with the fine sheen of porcelain,
luminous in the noonday light.
The weatherman’s predicting thunderstorms.
Maybe that’s why the butterflies flutter so.


 

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