FIELDS

The air grew heavy with summer
and tomorrow slept in the fields,
dozing among the corn stalks
where cicadas sang

their tuneless lullaby.
There was, that season, a river
we could not cross, flooded
with our illusions. In stages

imperceptible,
it rose as we played
along its bowered banks,
at reckless dreams of love,

sun-lit games born in
the fervor and fever of spring.

There was too much heat,
that summer, too many storms;
we were intoxicated
on secrets and the scent

of fresh-mown fields. We were
carried on the flood
of the river grown wide,
our banks undercut,

our sanctums swept away.
I have slept in those fields,
dreamed with tomorrow
of comings and of goings,

of the wind that turns
in its season. Of summer.

Stephen Brooke ©2009

Something new, at last, and relatively serious. Been hard to concentrate on much lately.