Summer on the Rim

My soul fell in pieces, Unprepared to see the old garden plow Leaning against barbed wire, Its rust-broken handle, Yellowed-up with blowing buttercups. I watched forest-flitting birds In carnival-colored flights; Heard a nightingale's sweet-throated song Drift with dreamlike ease; Falling on nets of darkening silk. Harps of high grown grass Singing in sunlit wind, in a patch Of purple thistle - A stained glass, Velvet butterfly, pauses, Looting nectar, thistle-hops - gone. How often have you heard thunder Hold a rainbow in her raucous heart? Then sky-walk on ladders of imagination To paint pastel ribbons in an arch Across a clearing sky. I have felt the haunting grace Of leafy boughs reflected In pools of swept glass; Where violets peek from beneath ferns To see if their faces are clean. I followed an old trail, twisting, Curling through dense shadows To an old cabin, boarded up. No one will Come to mend the falling fence, or Pick sunflowers glowing in the sun. Schools of magenta owl clover, Lupine blues, sway in unison To the music of an unpainted flute; As choreographed dancers Twirl on little rooted-feet. O pallid bones of aspen! Do you hear your green leaves clicking; Tap dancing along your limbs? Yours is not a tranquil summer! Remember! Someone will be here soon To steal your gold. Please, do not speak to me! I will tell you when you may. I am holding beauty in: Freshly gathered in my starving soul! Wait! I shall come back to you, With spools of unwound wonder! - Jean Humphrey Chaillie (Right) Dewey-eyed thorn apple blossom. Also known as jimson weed and datura. (Inset, right) Butterfly and thistle. (Inset, left) Indian paintbrush. Photos by Joe DiStefano (Following panel, pages 36 and 37) Black-eyed susans fill a Mogollon Rim meadow. Josef Muench (Inset, page 36) Bee fly and blossom. Joe DiStefano