Now summer’s velvet, haughty, hot replete—

Saccharine incense burned from August blooms,

Steam sauna skies to baste in hothouse heat,

Limp listless earth bewitched by Maenad tunes.

Cicada screams now undulate the air

As grackles stalk the misty seas of green,

Dark starlings march, black lines of bleak despair

To seek, destroy, dismantle and demean.

That regal eye now burns into the souls,

Those hapless few still prostrate on the ground,

Staunch mien beheld by brave or abject fools

Who yet defy reprieve in shadows found.

By shade of umbrage, so bemused I squint,

Bemoan my state … and raise a julep mint.