Perfect Summer

The early mist and
banked grey cloud gave way
to a day of scorch and
zephyr: my heathers are
too dry and all the earth
is dust

I remember that
perfect summer before she left:
three months of hot sun,
the open Strath, no rain,
the scorch on skin; this

is shaping up to be
the same again - after
twenty-two years of life-
in-death, the weather is
again unforgiving
but sublime

but below, beneath, the
dearth goes on despite the heat:
there has been a trial of

going on despite gone
the place, her presence
and all my world of
lack and grief: I try

on the sun for size -
I'm not sure it fits me:
this blazing day, after day,
but I love to sit

with the trees, birds, and
the mountains - one day
I won't be here - I will
be gone in their dimension

and be home
lost in air, in golden
pollen dust, in all
the hopes and dreams I
ever had breathed-out
in a tiny puff of lungs
and effort: all the darkness
shunned into light
and no cry

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