Errant wind, far so from north
comes down deep upon this way,
past the verdant sedge and cane
to rustle clustered loblolly,
and past their bark-clad colonnades.
Between the drowning of its sound,
the summer cicadas sing to leaves
as last of vernal cedes its bloom,
as green engulfs in heap and cluster,
and estivation haunts the rooms of
falling sheet roofs, decaying doorways,
while kudzu crawls and smothers all shade,
besides a barren yard of stone hewn
from forgotten gulches rife with slate,
which cast their shadows stark against
the lush that's soon to congregate
about their chips, their cracks, their face
or names now blotched by sun and rain,
their dates now weathered, the cross displaced,
some flowers fallen, seeds now lain
into the soil at close of day.
Or perhaps, one or two shall drift, along the wind
just as from lips, or by the pen,
the names upon those stones did slip
upon that gale that resumes again,
and carries with it all the things
I hear and see in evening.
In quiet morning, along the Tchefuncte,
the guttural wail waxes over river.
The wheels that turn on corrugation,
and vessels lapping against the seawall
stir the solemn contemplation
towards a singular, simple thinking:
of Spanish moss and sudden gloaming
from clouds that pass by over lowly, and,
within their blanket sometimes breaking
in revelation- the light of summer-
Oh, some hot day it’s soon to be.