The Slipping of Summer

Air moves slowly through the open door

then begs the corner of my eye to watch

as a small thread from a spider's web

turns into a gold chain even as I look away

feeling like I can't bear to know

how fragile this one thing is

and how carelessly it can be destroyed

But I have already seen it

connecting the wooden door frame to the bookcase

where in one corner a book is wrapped up in patient silk

sewn up so tight lace fingers of it

hold its pages in place

I see a fluff of feather there

caught fast by the delicate strings

cast across the air and taken by the sun

like a piece of art holding mighty

a drift from a molting summer bird

I watch a hammock swing

macraméd and filled gracefully with wind

then set on fire with sunlight

and I am captured in the whim

that it is marking a path to the place of bare feet

and the sound of summer's children in the yard

gone too soon and replaced with slamming car doors

and crows quarreling in the shadows of morning

How slowly air moves into the voices of the trees

over my shoulder I sense time moving

made from the slipping of summer even as I turn

wanting to catch the first squeal from a cool-down sprinkler's child

and only find the sound of leaves