Want What You Have

On the eve of a July supermoon
ninety degrees hot
I visualize snow drifting like the spray
of a cresting wave
moving with the wind, obscuring visibility.

Full moons named for natural phenomena
July’s Buck moon—for bucks’ growing antlers
Sturgeon moon, Harvest, Hunter, Beaver
and the Cold moon

that takes us straight into winter where dry
icy blizzard snow spindrifts across
roadways, swirls around light poles, and grit-mixed,
packs into corners, desert-sand hard.

And isn’t that just the thing I say, when it’s cold
we ache for summer days, while in the heat of July
we beg for chill, frost-filled afternoons, yet know
our longing stops us from savoring what is.

August Hush

In the slide to September, quiet reigns.
Sounds of creaking and growing are
muted by ripening, the way you cannot hear
a baby enlarge in the womb but feel it,
see the change from seed to something.

August’s Perseids, comet debris, burn through
the atmosphere like silent fireworks, appear
to shoot from Perseus, a constellation light years
away, sending meteors to burn up 60 miles
from the earth’s surface, cicadas the only sound.

You might hear watery swish of swimming sturgeon
so abundant this time of year they lend their name
to August’s full moon, a seasonal Blue Moon
in the current year, showing itself in reticent glory
third in line to usher in September’s autumn equinox.

As tomatoes turn red and corn gets ready for picking
Hibiscus turns “summer to paradise” with faces
as big as dinner plates in showy colors like hot pink
and daylilies and Hosta re-bloom, but in between
leaves start a noiseless fade from green to gold.

Mary C. Rowin’s poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in a variety of publications such as Hummingbird, Panopoly, Solitary Plover, Stoneboat and Oakwood Literary Magazine. Nominated for a Pushcart, her awards include prizes from The Nebraska Writers Guild and Journal from the Heartland. Mary lives in Middleton, Wisconsin.