I. Summer
Somewhere summer is gold, I’ve heard
but here it is gray as tired earth.
Like light mysterious to the prism,
so all it is nothing.
I pity those near the mouth of the den
embroidered with ceaseless energy.
By day by light accosted,
at night by heat exhausted.
To witness is to fall
short of empathy.
Where, then, are the fairy tales of haze gray summer,
Of dog days beneath crackling pines?
C.B. Crenshaw 