Love to me has come to be
a garden party
Where passing the sugar
is philanthropy
Where summer has come
and gone
again
again
Men passing like plucky clouds
on those days of sun to be spent
Flatter yourself dear. Surely you are more than
This.

The rain is falling, coalescing now
Off the roof onto new blooms.
Dusk slips in with its indigo shroud
And I watch it kiss the purple,
Of the Rhododendron’s earliest flower,
Plucking away Azalea’s last veil,
Hiding her into a bower,

Where summer never ends
And the rain falls when it will;
I would have this all year instead of an end
Where these soft mists know nothing of a chill
But heat and rain,
Sun and shower.

I can still hear raindrops drumming
On a Chinese rebel’s tin roof,
Outside Jakarta and the red guard coming,
We could lapse into hypnosis,
Rapt senses gently humming.

Despite our temperate flowers and leaves
That droop under the deluge.
Their color seems to strengthen as they grieve,
And they cluster, seeking refuge,
Yet from our New England loggia,
A stream turns them darker, a humid green.

And in the slowly deepening dusk,
The trees’ heads toss, agitated,
Like elegant women whose gowns have cost
A tidy sum and now are saturated.
Their full, green plumage lost.

I love the mockingbirds’ changing cries,
Announcing from to squeal to carillon.
Cardinals’ song change from pleasure to pain
Flashing coats of taupe to vermilion.
As the evening slowly dies.

It ends and begins with summer, summer,
Soundless footsteps in the rain.
A prismatic wakening from slumber,
A season with no name.