the weather is insanely beautiful right now... I wish I could bottle it up and share it. I love the ever-changing moods of summer in Georgia: the rainy brightness of early summer, the heavy embrace of baking heat in high summer, and the sweet airiness of late summer. Even though it doesn't match today's weather, I want to share this poem I wrote years ago... every summer, the words of this poem drift through my mind.

Heavy Heat

I step out
and taste the moist hot breath
the earth breathes
solemn.

I ease my eyelids lower,
brush my lashes
against the day.

A light wind stirs the boiling dust,
tosses it: myriad petal kisses on my skin.
I suck it in, in, i i i i n n n,
deep into my lungs.

The heat brings oceans to me —
each wave with salty oily sweat
mists my delighted body.

And I taste flecks of sunshine
with each claydust-coated puff of air,
on each honeysuckle droplet,
and each breath of growing grass.

                  ©Belenen 07.15.02