Shadow Tracks
May 27 2010


The shadow tracks
the sun, the season.
On the north side of the house
I watch the distance shrink,
just a narrow strip of shade
to escape the heat.

The lawn struggles,
even the weeds are dry, shrunken.
We always thought it was electricity humming
through the wires
in long hot summers.
But now I’m told it’s cicadas, crickets
or something,
calling out.
Proclaiming territory
perhaps preening for mates,
filling the air with the high lonesome sound
of long afternoons,
the dog days
when school is out.
When heat waves
shimmer off the pavement,
kids complain they’re bored.
And we can barely wait for dusk
the cool of night.

Or rain
when it comes, finally,
in a deluge, a torrent
storming down.
When thirsty earth gorges
like a desert island survivor.
Shadows vanish
under cloudy skies.
And the lawn perks up
the weeds on a rampage
the kids outside —
jumping in puddles
daring lightning and thunder
barefoot in mud.

On the first day of summer
the shadow begins to lengthen,
precious days
start counting down.
So even at the very beginning
I am reminded how close to the end.



This poem was written at the end of May, even though it takes the perspective of June 21. That’s the day the shadow is balanced on the cusp, about to stop shrinking and start lengthening again. The sense of torpor and heat seem premature for May, since the official beginning of summer is over 3 weeks away. But already, in this anomalous summer of 2010, the last full month of spring has the feel of an August heat wave.

I’ve always kept track of the shadow on the back deck, which acts like a harbinger of hot weather, as well as its end. Usually, the shadow has already substantially lengthened by the time summer finally heats up, giving me an overwhelming sense of how precious is each remaining day. So observing it now – still shrinking, with a long way yet to go -- I’m not only acutely aware how much summer is still to come, but amazed and grateful for this unseasonable weather.

So it’s a lyric poem, that gives me a chance to capture this year’s enervating sense of heat and drought; to indulge in a little nostalgia about “school’s out” summers; and to reflect on the bittersweet feeling that comes with June 21: the official beginning of summer, yet also the day we can’t help but see the beginning of the end.