I've never seen the jasmine blossoms turn brown so early in the summer. More than half of them must be dead already, though I've irrigated the bushes almost daily. And though the mountains have their cooling clouds, here there is only empty, pale blue sky where a hunting hawk wheels now and then. I wonder at its energy. I only laze about, waiting for the trees to hide the sun so I can go out and cool the tormented plants with streams of bright water shooting from the garden hose.
Dusk is an hour away. The automatic lawn sprinklers of the house on the corner have come on. One of them is still broken, and still shoots an arc of water several feet high. I can hear the splashing from here. It's a very welcome sound.
Sunday Verse
Everything is Going to Be Alright
by Derek Mahon
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.
