I don't much care for August...

I don't much care for August.

The sticky, stuffy heat, the hot tired road on pads and soles.
But then I find myself amused by how the tarmac blisters,
glints balefully like eyes, gives underfoot and licks your shoes,

as if the road becomes alive and starts to move,
has appetites and aspirations of its own, and briefly keeps
your footprint as a keepsake of your passing through.

But still I'd say, I don't much care for August.

The lack of lushness, the nastiness of ragweed. Though,
I love the bee-charged mound of marjoram, and how
the knapweed throws a purple beaded net along the verges,

and those bright harvest flowers - hawksbeards? - something in between
a thistle and a dandelion, whose yellow is of so intense a saturation that you want

to thank them for it. Even the meaty purple architecture of the hogweed's rather fine...

But still I'd say, I don't much care for August.

For the insects, the grubby flies and all the things that buzz and bite
and sting and tickle, how nothing seems to veil an open door
or window when you need it most. Although, of course,
I love the butterflies, which animate the weary garden,
burning up the flowers and themselves in their miraculous economy.
And the black writhings of the caterpillars on the nettle leaves, I like that too.

But still I'd say, I don't much care for August.

How the land seems altogether overloaded, overwhelmed
with cropping and with forced fertility. Mind you, the baked brown
wholesomeness of wheat, plush and fat in the fields still,

the plumes of barley cut to vivid stubble, ridges and rolls
of straw that need no Rumpelstiltskin to turn them into gold,
are good, all good. Yes, good like buttered toast.

But still I'd say, I don't care much for August.

I don't approve of maize, resent its bullying invasion, how
it overbears and tunnels us, its starchy, sucking ruin of the soil.

And yet, the spread hands of its flowers, their longest digits pointing,
eagerly, up to the sky, saying "There! Look, there,
that's where we're going!" as it dandles its new baby cobs,
their green blond top knots turning purple auburn, endear it to me, even so.

But still I'd say, I don't care much for August, nor for maize.

Nor for the way the birds in moult can scarcely sing, and dawn
without them's sad and sullen. Until, the other day, the robin, who,
threadbare and starey, has frowsted for weeks around the garden paths,
perched on the fence showing off his sleek new orange outfit, then
launched himself upward, catching his song's ripple in mid-air.
And then too, there are the young ones learning how to live...

But still I'd say, I don't care much for August.

For, in August's foxed and speckled accidie, its outstayed welcome,
its spent- and staleness, its bleached-out colour, shortened days, I see

perhaps the year in weedy, seedy middle-age, the dullness of a wasted afternoon,
reproaching me. And yet, mid-life is not so bad, and lazy afternoons are not a sin,
(- though more and more I fear that wishing any time away might well be... )
But roll on fresh September and the happy hour!

For really, I would say, I don't care much for August.