Turkeys in our field vying for what shade they can find
Everyday I start to write about the heat, I realize what I’m prone to say has already been said, and what’s worse, by me last summer. So instead I offer this retrospective of life on a desert planet, otherwise known as much of the Midwest lately and more specifically from my vantage point, Kansas:
- “So Friggin’ Hot” – Written last summer in early June, long before I knew what months of so friggin’ hot truly were.
- “20 Things To Do When It’s Above 100 Degrees” — Now I just need 20 more things to do.
- “Satan Called: He Wants His Weather Back” – If only!
- “Acclimating to the Heat” — Strange, sad and true.
- “Wrung Out to Dry Instantly in the Heat” – When Kansas turns on its power motor.
- “When You Can’t Stand the Heat But Won’t Leave the Kitchen” — The kitchen being our state.
Meanwhile, let’s toast a large glass of iced water to cooler days ahead, maybe even in the low 90s (be still, my heart!) and continue to inside-out and outside-in our lives in search of air-conditioning and joy.
Hi Caryn,
I know how you feel on hot days like this. After struggling with a poem for three days, and it would not let me have its spirit, I was on our deck in the morning on the 15th sipping iced coffee with this monstrous, evil little child of a poem that would not talk with me, and I glanced to my left and saw this:
One Hundred Degrees and Bees
At such temperatures, my heart is with the honey bees
That have returned, and when one bumps another, it takes
A while for them to settle down together, the bar crowd
That wants to satisfy its empty thirst, taking tiny communion
Without wafers, only crossing each other while waiting
A turn by circling above the half-empty birdbath, waiting
To find a place to land among drones, if only one would
Leave from the morning’s fill of the delicious, fresh water.
To cool the hive, they drink up to bursting; then they step
Back, turn around slowly as not to disturb anyone, for
Politeness, then head northeast, complaining a little louder
With heavy cooling cargo, sloshing on a fast return home
Two leave; three return, all day until dark. They
Continue the worship in their ring, bowing to the
Life giving liquid, worshipers who do so in short
Prayers before they take off, flying hard, lifting
A little nosier in buzz, and briefly, as briefly as a bee can–
Regard and regret the fallen few who either by mistake or
Nearsightedness, misjudged the distance to find themselves
Trapped by the surface tension for the payment of sacrifice
The other poem is in my bad child drawer at home and may come out when it’s time to behave, next week maybe.
Congrats on the book. No response needed.
Keep cool,
Dan Pohl