The summer is bleeding and I can’t stop it.

It’s running down the legs of time and it’s pooling at the feet of life—the summer will perish and what will be left is a shell of this portion of 2020.

A translucence appears in the atmosphere when the soul leaves the body. In near-translucent outline I see tokens of a former time:  the summers within the memory of my history. Warm weather, County Fairs, beach vacations, the barbecues and roadtrips and happiness all shimmer above the dead summer.

A burial awaits. Summer wrapped in rags, embalmed in cancelled plans, it waits to be laid to rest. I turn the soil, folding in frustration, grief, despair, a cup of anxiety for what other little deaths wait in the future. (I stop mid-way to wonder, have I shaken the last hand I ever will, then? have I gone to my last concert?)

I gather the summer in my arms and pour it into the earth, I say goodbye and recite an Our Father. I look up past the translucence that is, after all, only tears. I see the cloudless sky, the pulsating blue and sunshine streaming forth, and I hear a hymn float on the breeze, I hear a hymn amid the birdsong. (An answer: I am at this concert, now, in this moment.)

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