Dog Days

The summer swelters are here.

Days that make me want to burrow

deep into the earth, praying hard

for the wet blessing of a rain drop.

Here in the South, there's a certain pace to things - or perhaps more succinctly, a certain lack of pace - when the heat arrives. Ambition melts like a chocolate bar left on the truck's dashboard and time lies suspended, shimmering like the watery mirage on distant blacktop. Life sits on the porch and pants.

Dog days.

Trees droop their shoulders,

leaves limp as fingers dangling

without purpose

T-Bone's response to this thermal oppression is to drop a float tube into the Eno and to go where the river takes him. The float embraces the pace of southern summer living and cools the dogs in the slow-flowing water and blessed riverbank shade. A fly rod, of course, is mandatory. I happily joined him.

Dog days.

Nothing sings

Nothing moves

but the dragonflies gliding

through the thick warm soup

that once was air.

Redbreast sunfish, bluegill, greenies, Roanoke and largemouth bass - all as lazy as we were. T-Bone's invitation read "Be at my place by 9:00am. I have found crack-of-dawn fishing on the Eno unfruitful." Fine by me. Yes, the sleep-in fish were lazy, but not completely unwilling, and we caught our share as we floated, portaged, and waded with our tubes tethered to our belts like puppies on a leash.

Dog days.

Hard to breathe.

Hard to care.

Caught in the doldrums,

I take baby breaths,

and dream of the quiet chatter of sleet

as it hits a tin roof.

Six hours on the river went by in a summer haze. Two miles of cool green ribbon. An afternoon of relief. Floating under the overhanging branches, feet deep in the languid flow, we could almost forget that summer was hard upon us. Almost.

Dog days.

Note: The italicized verse interleaved above is not mine. It was written by my good friend Catherine who protests vehemently that she is not a poet. It seems perfectly clear that she is mistaken.