They said it would be 90˚. Summer, a long time coming. Heat turned on in the schoolhouse into July. Raining into August. Fields still green and the yellows of sweet clover still strong. And yet, just as it is beginning, I feel summer’s end encroaching. Richard Hugo said we are easily confused with the weather and seldom better. I’ve sat on the porch in the morning facing east and felt the heat on its way to a fevered pitch, but not yet there. Wind ruffling the tall grass and cooling the skin, but heat coming around the edges. I have felt the pull of the studio table, a place that knows when the striking must be done. But often spend a few minutes more watching the grass quiver and shake while the pages of The Right Madness of Skye lift and settle, lift and settle.
