Why should it make me sad,
to watch the wind move through the leaves
of an elm tree in late May,
a great green cloud against the bluest sky.
Or to smell the sun heat the asphalt,
and tiny globes of sweat and Coppertone on my skin -
the golden smell of summer,
of knees skinned and healed and skinned again,
of sun-faded flags,
red white and blue dancing mounted on neighbors' porches,
neatly folded and forgotten the rest of the year.
Or to sit in my backyard
in the receding light with what is left of the day,
and listen in utter longing to the katydids
humming their summer incantation.
And wish, that if I could only bottle the sound
as I once did the magic of fireflies,
that repairing loneliness was as easy as opening jar.