Saturday, August 19, 2023

August is a Yellow Flame - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

August is a Yellow Flame

 

 

“That August was like a yellow flame”

 

-Anna Ahkmatova, 1917 / Anno Domini MCMXXI / III. The Voice of Memory

 

 

This August is indeed like a yellow flame

Death writhes among brown-burnt withering leaves

The grass is as sere as Macbeth’s acrid soul

And garden hoses drip in futility

 

The sun-bleached visage of Ozymandias

Might frown upon this blighted desert wrack

For not unlike the Ancient Mariner’s ghostly crew

The usages of summer drop and decay

 

But look...

 

But look above the last barren clouds in the west -

A tiny sliver of the promising moon

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