In the Four States: Summer is Just Coming in.
by Glynn Bennion
Summer in Love
Summer in Hate
Summer in some other state
Between birth’s first breath
And the last gasp of death.
I love the shade of Maples my father cultivated
Here on Turtle line.
I love the new garden growth,
The last harvest of sweet peas,
The first ripe tomato picked at its prime
And fresh from the vine,
White headed green onions,
Collards both green and red
In the raised beds I spread for them.
I love White Oaks and Black Walnut Trees
That volunteer from nuts and acorns
Overlooked or lost--scattered--by that distracted squirrel
And her mate.
The various grasses grow whether I will or no
And want some herbivore or mowing boy
To keep them and the honeysuckle vines
From thinking that they own the place.
I don’t own the place.
What right have they?
The hummocky ground where pigs have rooted
Or moles have moiled
Or men have toiled
Or trucks have ground their tread into uneven earth
Make of mowing a hatred--a chore to be avoided--abhorred.
So the grasses and the honeysuckle vines survive.
I hate the welts and itchy sores--the bites of tiny carnivores:
Chiggers and ticks.
And helicopter mosquitoes
Whose musicless hum prevents my sleep
And makes me slap my already offended ear.
I am the death of flies
That invade my living space
Buzz into my beard
Fondle my food.
I kill them All
with swatters, poisons, sticky strips,
and even with my bear, clapped hands.
They cannot escape me.
But I am not so naive as to believe
That I can escape their patient and enduring vengeance.
The irony is not lost on me.
The other states that I live in make no matter.
I prefer, while I have life, to live in Love.
And though the Garden now has weeds
Noxious insect pests
Mice, moles, and other vermin
I love to walk in the cool of Adam’s evening
In Eve’s Paradise.
Finding pleasure in the gifts the Father gives from Heaven
And Good things from the Earth my Mother
Both to gladden the heart
And to nourish the soul.
To heal all wounds
To make me whole.
