Gold, Green and Gray Days

Covered Bridge at Devil's Hopyard State Park 6-29-2013

Gold, green and gray,

These are the days

Of early summer in New England

When the sun has yet to dominate,

And mosquitoes start to rise on clouds

From wet forests and flooded fields,

Where humidity turns into rain

And back again

In the ageless alchemy of water

and life

and emerald.

It is the time before the blazing days of summer

When everything starts to wither and wilt

And turn brown.

These are the gold, green, and gray days,

The pensive days, the dreaming days,

The remembering.

~Kathie Adams Brown (July 23, 2013)

Sultry

Gilded Flicker

Heat blazing

White skies

Flesh turned to liquid

Sticky and salty

Melting into the heat

Cicadas whine

Their whirr reaching a fever pitch

Birds pant in the trees

Shade does no good

The air is still,

Thick and still,

Suffocatingly still,

and still 

It is summer

With autumn but a distant dream

of color, and coolness, and relief.

~Kathie Adams Brown (July 17, 2013)