Late July

A sea of periwinkle moves

across the south pasture towards the timber.

The wild chicory has spread triumphantly

with taut stems which hold fast to the baked clay

of late July.

In a season of drought,

here is water of a different sort:

a quench of blue stars

undulating wildly in the brown breeze.

Spring-fed from a deeper source

it is that thing you call upon

when dust dulls you

and you sleep, dreamless, in small corners.

That place you go

when you must gather your children behind sod walls

and sing the songs of spring

your voices, lovely specters, rising

from the stubble around you.

This is water with no volume,

no hydrogen or oxygen.

But it flows just as surely,

cascading in ancient pools

from which we all drink

and through which the sun shatters

into prisms of life.