Shapings of Summer
By Doug Bolling

There had been emptiness and then
reservoirs filled. You opened the
book and words fell out beginning
their important journeys.

The small coins in your hand told
of new stories even as the sea gulls
began their brilliant spirals and the
hot sun mocked even the oldest stones.

We walked in it catching light as it
made mirrors of our bodies. There was no
where to turn that escaped this new wisdom
of earth, of desire that sucked at our feet.

Like time, you said, summer is everywhere
about us but no one can touch it. It holds
us in its gatherings as sky the gull up
there drawing a line between sand and sea.

You said: we see it best when winter takes
back everything. When you feel your own death
closing just behind you in fields that are
now distant as the stars.

You said: toil staunchly in the soil while
you can. Bring up the potato, the gourd,
the bounty of bean. Bargain with the furrows,
the windy scraping of prescient stalks.