“I know that summer ends when my mustards die,”
It’s a secret I was told that belongs to the seasons.
Few alive know of how to even predict weathers:
“Walk you carefully to the edge of a tree’s shadow
Then raise your hand high above the ground
look at the sun until your eyes line up with it—“
He explained to me like an old mathematician
So occupied my father seemed with his calculations
Sometimes just to prove to his neighbors and friends
that tomorrow’s rain comes exactly at three p.m.
Those jagged hands waving up and down
Like a weather vane looking for wind’s direction
I was only a young boy or so I vaguely remembered
When he called me home earlier than he usually did
The seven years old boy cried, refused to listen
To his fathers’ nonsense about a coming ice storm.
“I saved you at the rightful age so you can play on
Or else I would lose you before you grow old
In the shelling hailstones of that one July afternoon.”
He brought this story up to us every single December
His magic in telling the weather hasn’t changed since
It’s me who began to slowly forget all his gesticulating
Under the searing sun while I stared and listened
To him rambling quietly that a rain should come soon.