A Vision

Summer was rind and fruit;
then sudden, humid fermentation.  

We held one ear in the direction of rain,
the other open to cricket call.

Not even locusts gathered 
as clouds on the horizon. 

The fields radiated in all
directions, as though in those 

old dreams of possibility.
We tried to take the measure 

of this intractable body of heat.
No one had the heart to open

one striped umbrella, one
gaudy beach chair.