| Mid-afternoon in Summer
by Jennifer Floyd
|
Softly sunlight glazes the
landscape
like honey from a jar
Clinging to the curves of the stones
that cling to the hillsides
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Spilling across the ochre
fields
coating the dried grasses and mesquite
Blanketing the wild buckwheat
draping the live oaks like golden pollen drifting
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The murmuring drone of the
grasshoppers
the cicadas’ deeper buzzing
In the mustard flowers, the bee’s high hum
hangs embedded in the thick air
|
Dense dust drifting along
dirt roads
cracks baking wider in dry ditches
Motes glint as they float through sunlit spaces
sifting through cracks, filling hollows
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Covering surfaces with
wheaten powder
the silken sand
Coating the big, dust-colored dog
draped across a shaded boulder
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Golden eyes alight in the
dark face
bright with the same sun-glow
That bathes the land around her
heat-haze shimmering
|
Long-tailed tawny dog, black
ears listening
to the drone of insects’ wings
Lanky form lying on dried lichens
as the sun lies over the gilded fields
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Caught in the amber
atmosphere
except for the quick, bright lizard
That darts across hot stone, snaps up a fly
and is gone.
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