Summer - last and best

This may be the
last, best summer of my life -
with the pure white roving
clouds, the china blue,
the swifts charging in
large packs and the parasol,
the earth is dust
and all is drought
under the hot air - it was
like this before: the last
best summer of my mother
before she left here -
twenty-one years it has
been from then to now
and in another twenty-one
I will be gone into the sun
with nothing left behind
except shadows on the grass
and a temperate breeze,
all the little objects of my 
mind and life dispersed,
discarded,
of no further use to anyone.

previous poem

next poem