Capricious

Last August as barometers

fell and skies spun their pewter webs,

we dreamed of rain. Watching thirsty

sourwoods blush before the light

shifted, we pressed that buxom summer

to fill our shelves with bottles of bread

and butter pickles, spicy salsa, home brew.

Dog days courted the fat winds

out of Alabama, teased us to seventh heaven,

hid downpours in fox grapes and persimmons.

That year we looked up, sought safe haven

in a Farmer’s almanac. The hours sailed

toward summer’s end, in graceful orbit of Earth,

and we prayed like refugees for nimble ideas

to reunite land and sky. Patient love

sweltered between line-dried sheets. We

believed sundogs were omens, believed we

could pull them apart like wishbones to find water.

Our oracles hid in flowers, still seeds under dry soil,

in warts of a mother bulb. This year swells open,

nick of time, lusciously wet and brilliantly blue

and this summer we wake to cool mornings,

pregnant with thunderheads, bursting

like ripe plums most afternoons. Yellow anthers

shiver Jove offerings onto flighty heels

of bees, our gardens yield licentious bounty.

Bullfrogs practice swallowing the pond.

We wish Eden weren’t so capricious,

but our wild hearts know better. We are

the fickle ones, and paradise meets us here.