The Summer

This is the sun's high exultation

and the ample month's of the lark's

preference. Beasts roam without

dreams and there are keels in

the water and dragonflies cross

_ the air. Children catch

the phosphorescent fly and light

decreases. The Borelias and Zephyr

from the northern sea set off

explosions in the scalding air,

and a curious passion, fixed

in the heart by nights of crazy

dreams, cuts the legs from under me

and in the passages of dark,

in the summer's long intensity,

the body learns the canons and conditions

of the heart. (O summer's not

for Manichees.) This is the manner

of the season and from sleep,

current with burning, I wake

to massing butterflies

and my son's hurrahs on the widowswalk.