In the Heat of Summer

A poem for: the want of rain.

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In the Heat of Summer
by Kristine Neeley

Quietly, I plod to the garden
beds at dawn, hardly awake
and hunted by the coming horizon.
Dew neglects to collect in webs
strung between strawberry plants:
gossamered, sticky traps of green.

Deftly, I plunge my hands into
still-dry soil, barely breathing
and hunted by hunger’s lack.
Earthworms squirm out of
tunnels brought to the surface:
slimy, slithering saints in pink.

Gently, I prune the crushed
plants growing, coarsely crowded
and hunted by the harvest.
Tomatoes plead, lean, in a clamor of
limbs and leaves withering,
their slowly goldening canopy.

Quickly, the sun lifts and its
rays scorch, harshly starving
and hunting the whole earth.
Drought lifts parched lips,
still holding up to hope its
desperate, brown hands.

Wearily, we wait with held 
breath for cloud and with it, 
our long-hunted, taste of rain.
Skies blaze unconcerned
by our need, daring to sing 
blue all the way into black.

Photo by Geetanjal Khanna on Unsplash

Isn’t it funny how you can write a poem in April, knowing it was made for July? Knowing there will begin to string together weeks, just past the half, that you find yourself stalking the forecast for any sign that rain is on its way. Knowing that it’s not just the gardens, the grass, and the green trees waiting with bated breath, but every cell in your body that feels haunted by the lack of water from the sky.

On Day 19 of National Poetry Writing Month we were prompted to write a poem responding to the question “What are you haunted by, or what haunts you?” and then, in our poems, to change the word haunt to hunt.

My tomato plants weren’t yet in the garden, then, and the soil was still pummeled near daily by rain, but already I was haunted hunted by the thirst I knew would come: the bake of sun, the swelter of humidity, and a creeping desperation for whole days under the cover of thunderclouds.

I was one foot in the middle of spring, the other in the heat of summer. Now here, in this garden that won’t grow, the words that won’t come, the quiet that won’t quite show itself, I’m feeling it again: part longing, part delight, part dread.

Only this time, for all that fall brings, good, bad, and everything in between.

But most of all, change.

That’s the blessing of seasons, I’m sure. Of knowing they turn and that somehow by summer’s end I’ll taste the fruit of this time, even if in the heat of it, I cannot.

Sure wouldn’t mind some rain, though, in the meantime.

Stay hydrated,