August

Phillip Brown

I

Today, the sun stares
intently at my field—
this clearing I claimed
as my own at the start
of summer—and

I take refuge
beneath a tent-flap of shade,
hunched on a large rock
all rusted with lichen,
as I watch

the blackbirds fidget,
perched among the tawny bristles
of the tall grass—
uncomfortable, perhaps,
in their dark cloaks.

I notice also a scattering
of wild poppies—
their fiery cups with burnt centers
fluttering like butterflies
atop such supple stems.

And the grass rustles dryly
in the warm breath of dusk
and its copper light—and the field
looks like an aged piece of paper
flapping and folding
while caught on the ground.

Everything, it seems—
the sparse leaves,
the rough-barked branches,
the blackbird wing—

each is whispering
with the husky voice of earth,

but what they speak of
I cannot even guess
though they've whispered it
for days now.

II

The moon emerges
above the trees, rising
gently like a pale balloon
released into the night,
and the stars float—thousands
on the surface of the sky.

The breeze presses
with greater urgency now;
the grass bends
and sways, rising
and falling in waves,
as if it secretly longs
to become water,
to become sea.

An owl, silent as a ghost,
sails out of the shadows
and drifts down over the field,
the tips of her wings
gliding through the shifting green.

I watch with reverence
from my stone—my island place—
the occasional firefly
swimming through the darkness,
the grass lapping up against the trees.

A small, green wave
slips toward me, and I yearn
to remove my shoes
and wade—barefoot
into the clearing;

to dive in and be claimed
by this field that found me,
that called my name
when summer began.