Impossible July

Today's poem is from my first collection, Chance of Rain.

As its name implies, the poems in it are about rain, certainly, but it's also about the absence of rain ... equally important to those who raise the food on which we all depend.

This poem is about that absence. It was written in an attic room so perfectly fitted for talking about the "blue flame of sky/ leaping horizon-to-horizon/ and back ... "

It was a room never intended for air-conditioning, a place where "A fan labors, but fails" ... amidst a promise of rain, but an empty promise.

Oh, how I remember those hot, rain-starved, melting days of July in Southern Illinois, where I grew up! And how I miss them now.

The poem:

IMPOSSIBLE JULY

End of July, and as far

as the eye can see

only a blue flame of sky

leaping horizon-to-horizon

and back to this room

so high, so near the sun,

that words have become

too hot to touch.

A fan labors, but fails,

to bring relief, while my

thoughts bubble and run

like tar on a lonely road.

And the sky flares up

with the promise of rain,

but an empty promise, full

of the heat of absence.

Wafting, shimmering lines

become a cruel mirage,

yesterday’s fading belief

that relief from this

might still be possible.

© 2003

("Impossible July" received a third-place award in a ByLine competition, and later became a part of my first poetry collection, Chance of Rain, published by Finishing Line Press, 2003)

***

Today's word: promise

Afterthoughts ...in response to your comments:

Thank you, Helen, for that warm comment ... which reminds me that my impression of the heat was similar to yours ... I was aware that Southern Illinois could be quite hot and steamy, but I didn't have much real perspective on weather until I went into military service ... late summer, ummm, many years ago ... en route to basic training, we had a stopover in St. Louis ... naturally, we gravitated toward food. I remember being seated in a booth and reacting when my bare arm touched the table top ... it felt like I had just touched a hot stove ... hottest place ever, I thought. Oh, but hotter was still to come. We landed in San Antonio, and that was it. I absolutely roasted ... or so it seems from this vantage point.