Five Days

Five days.

Five days is a lifetime,
and the blink of an eye.
My lifetime, in five days, I remember it all
the heat brings it up, like the
thunderstorms that brew the whole day
until they can’t hold it in anymore
and by afternoon
have broken apart unleashing
the lowest rumbles from the earth’s belly
flashes of electricity,
raining down and cleansing just enough to hold itself over until the next afternoon.
The cicadas sing my story.
What do five days feel like for the
kingfisher? The dragonfly?
I hold crystals and rocks
and think how mountains have literally
moved for them to be here, and how many
mountains have I moved to be here
and when was the moment I learned to
move mountains?

We eat popsicles and watermelon over the sink,
trying to eat faster than they drip.
I lay on a throne of pillows,
but no blankets
because it doesn’t cool down at night.
I feel both the restlessness and sleepiness
that the heat brings,
the sadness and joy
that being home brings.
The cicadas sing their ode to the warm air,
they don’t know it, but I am listening.

--summer at home