...summertime...

...summertime...

...everybody knows it, she said...

... knows that I talk to myself...

and

...that’s ok, no one minds...

...is how I like it, it is...

...the older I get and the more my life is taken over by my memories by talking to myself about them I am transformed, turn back the clock I do, and bring them back to life ...

...and then the other one talks back to me and we understand one another...

...it has been a long, hot summer. The sun a white-hot disc in the sky too bright to look at...left images of green and magenta suns floating behind closed, tired lids...the disc burned and  faded the lush green of spring grass to ash gold and singed the leaves from the trees.

...after the winter we had, she said, I rejoice in the warmth of the sun...

...yes, I answered, just look at the fruit and the berries...

...it will be a hard winter this year, she fortold...

...you think so?...

...I do...

...what makes you think that?...

...is what the natives say...Indians...

...Indians?...

...American...

...learn from the land, it tells you what’s ahead and it tells you from the past...you have to learn to listen to the earth, she talks, the same as we...you only have to listen...

and

then the wind changed, came gently at first from the west and brought with it the song of the sea. Wispy clouds  swirling, following the pattern of the land in the sky and you could hear gulls crying in tune with the ocean, hanging, gliding as if time stood still...their piecing cry to show that time moved on...

...she longed for the rain but it did not happen for her even though the sky was the colour of slate and, a little ill content, she watched the ruby fireball sink into the sea...

and

then she heard it...the first heavy drop on the glass roof above her and then the second and as the sound steadied the parched earth embraced clouds’ gift and breathed again...she smelled the earth . She smelled the coming of autumn...

She was alone and her bare feet felt the harsh ash golden grass beneath. She lifted her face towards heaven and the rain ran gently over her hair and over her brow,  over her naked body...she stood quite still and wondered how it would be when she was old...

...how will it be when I am old, she asked the night, will I feel the rain on my breasts and my belly, my shoulders and back and the grass still warm from the burning sun over the last few days? ...

...what a pity this moment will pass,

what a shame that it cannot last,

will hold it forever

and

the grass will grow cold...

and

the soles of my feet will remember

a moment so precious to hold

the ash golden meadow

with meadowsweet and purple clover,

this moment will never be over,

etched into my heart, into my being,

all seeing,

the earth answering the sky above

clouds fleeing the dark to the light ...

my soul is singing with the sound

of the earth and the sky in the night...

...how will it be when I’m old she asked the sky...

...it will be as it is, is what I answered her...

...and though my eyes are clouded now, I still see the setting ruby sun, I see the fields of gold. I see the woman standing, still, as in a baptism, a joining of what must be joined, so the autumn might come for the winter to follow, I see her being one with the earth and the ocean’s song and the song of the rain....

...I talk to myself...

...always have...

and

...I see memories etched into time...

...and looking in between what is and what might be...

...earth’s rhyme and her rhythm’s there for all to see...

...I talk to myself...

...they know it and...

...say it’s a shame...

...she was one of a kind...

...no harm there to find...

...and  no one did mind...

...it’s just how I like it, I tell her...it’s just how it is...