June

 

“Protect all the trembling bells of delight that you notice out of the corner of your eye when everyone else is oblivious.” – Martin Shaw

“We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of the world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”  – Jack Gilbert

“Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” – Margaret Attwood

 

June

 

The field has softened into the sweet song of summer.

Charms of goldfinches flit among the long grasses and

the hedgerow is dotted with bramble flowers and wild roses.

If I crouch down into the waist-high canopy, a whole world unfurls:

a metallic green flower beetle is climbing a sorrel stalk,

a huge turquoise dragonfly patrols the grasstops in zig-zag lines

and grasshoppers hop and sing in the jungle below.

High above, circling in a cosmos blue sky,

buzzards ride the warm currents.

In the haze of a hot June afternoon, the field hums.

What kind of world are we heading into?

Lying on my back in this gold patch of earth

my worries about the future, ideas of hope and despair,

success and failure, and other funny human concepts

dissolve into peace, and delight. In this place, this living poem,

held by the earth, wrapped in the huge dome of the sky,

for a moment I feel like the world just wants us to feel good,

bathed in beauty, bathed in light.