I am giving this back to you.
These dog days of summer are lapping up on me. The raspberries and blackberries have left their prickly stems, shooting the spring growth, catapult style, to hook the cuff of your shorts, or scrape your leg. By the raspberry bushes on the stepping stones by the garage to the back gate of the alley, a squash has grown in the middle of the path. I don't know how it got there, but it is growing and ready to blossom. Sometimes seeds grow in strange places in strange cities. This isn't significant that it is a squash, it could be the weeds that grow in cracks of the sidewalk. The significance is less than conspicuous, it only grows in summer.
I enjoy late nights by myself.
Crickets have awoken their song with urgent delight. Here, under the hum of the city, their wings still scratch a sweet melody. The other day, I heard some cicadas busy a rhyme for the city and my nights. Bugs have become the symbolic clue talisman kismit luv in my life. I still kill mosquitos though. The boss has plenty of flowers to attract butterflies, big heavy bumblebees, wasps, and hornets. The feeders are "off" in the summer, but they were replaced with birdhouses of the miniature kind. House finches and sparrows dominate the 'scape. We get Cardinals, robin, bluejays, starlings, chickadees, warblers, pigeons, blackbirds (the red winged kind too, they have growing song brains), Crows, Grackles, Ravens, Red headed Tuffy Woodpeckers. I wouldn't be surprised if a duck walked into the yard. A family of sparrows has nested in a cavity next to the upper floor of the house. An air conditioner in the window there, where Sean glazes the tiles was a presumably preferable space to raise the youngin's. The constant squeaks for food are driving Sean crazy and he is threatening to wreak the nest.
I snore
My body ain't working right these days. I get pain sometimes. Pain in everywhere places, like between the joints of my fingers, or deep in my gut. I feel like a wobbly table, bumping, brushing into soft walls. A sideswipe cowboy. Yippy kai yea. Or however you spell it. Forgive my digression, and the sappy muck it rests in. It really isn't like this, but I found out I snore and it makes me feel like a half full trembling glass. The girl that sleeps in my bed tells me she finds it endearing, but what a process to endure. Spit. Hack. I am a monster sawing wood in the ear of a sweet girl who has fallen asleep in the crook where my arm meets my body. I am on my back. I don't snore when I am on my belly with a pillow crumpled under me.
Addicted to sleep.
Ode to the Snooze Button
How many times may I push you? Let's see.
One upon a treetop, where we'll share the sky
Two within a tiny nook, one with pea.
Three with the sun, and the moon being shy.
Our hours dwindle into the still night.
We race on their wakes with passion passion.
We ponder the bewilder of well worn light,
And eat at places of well worn fashion.
I snooze and lose while summer skips delights.
That eternal line through time though growest.
Sleep persuades my conscious self to take flight,
Through dreams of strength and sorrow we love best.
Dandelions find truth in the night shade.
Closing tight and tall when things start to fade.
Summer has too short a lease. August is here, wanting me to nurture the sun and the speed up growth spurt before winter. The sunflowers haven't blossomed yet so I still have time.