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THIS MORNING THE PEACH IS A WORLD by Viola Weinberg for Charlie Peacock Dangling, pendulous for weeks . . . even the Bees leave the lavender patch this morning To nuzzle the fuzz of the peach as I watered— Sacramento style, with a fine mist From a long steel wand, overhead spray Falling 7 a.m., sudden summer shower From the uncoiled hose, wet and cool Blowing straight up in a plume Soft, pumice and flume, water falling Summer hat and thin robe, feet in slippers The fruit nestled in its cup of leaves Like a comfortable belief, that peach So close to the reach, so far away As the heat rose, the sugar came up in a bubble Nectar-tempting to the touch One finger held up, straight and plumb Draining a drop in a mid-afternoon sigh, It's too high to reach without a ladder In the blasting heat, circling the tree The peach, my perfect globe, surely it's The perfect size of my outstretched hand As eleven comes on, we all retreat To the house, shutters and shades drawn Even the frisky dog is laid down by the day Outside, the peach splits its skin and drips By dinner, it is picked, skinned and pitted After the meal, we sit outside in the dark The juice running down our elbows Licking the blood of the peach finally in my reach A perfect world that peach, and now a perfect peace |
HERE by Sophia Ewing |
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SONGS OF JUNE by Mia Parviainen I. I sing of woven bird songs, calls, responses that wander amid warm breezes and rustling green as water trickles around mossy rocks and laps in shallows streams. Red strawberries flare under viny patches of leaves, suspended over dark earth, and the solar-warmed, sun-reddened delights form sweet explosions when sampled. I sing of majestic blooms, the size of melons for fruit salads, the perfume of mid-June day, the delicate fragrance that flows along the winds. Clover flowers, buttercups, violets dot the lovely expanses, shaded by white pine, blue spruce, and fully-clothed swamp maples, oaks, silver birch, black cherry, and elm. II. I sing of white plumes of flowers on thorny, prickly red brush that scratches the skin, that tears clothing; flowers that will give way to raspberries and blackberries that stain. I sing of scraggly blueberry bushes and the swampy ground, the skeletal dead protrusions, the hard green berries, anxious to turn to purple to blue, to tartness and sweetness, for August's muffins and pies. I sing of crab apple trees, stripped of pink petals of spring, their luster, their glamour, now plain, green, and awkward and nobby, and crookedly beautiful; I sing of the evening galumph of the bullfrog, the massive smooth-skinned king of ponds, of puddles, and mud, the interrupter of early evening slumber, the royal whose toadies rest under the bug-light, awaiting the buzz to electric-powered insecticide of June evenings. I sing of the claps of thunder that resound and force hands to be slammed over ears, the shaking of the earth, the double-barreled shot-gun burst of purple light, the tentative clean smell that settles as the clouds depart. Dandelions, bane of gardeners, the color of delighted childhood, making for crowns for short-lived tiny kings and queens, and the joys of dispersing their seeds in one long, continual stream of air, little parachutists scattered to embed, to control, to multiply the joys of June over the remainder of the summer. |
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