Perennial Death

Summer nights sitting in plastic strapped lawn chairs

between the barnyard and the old stone house

overlooking the meadows and hilltops of the river valley.

Needeeps had begun their chorus and as the sun faded

the wet heat cooled the sweat gluing our legs to chair straps.

Tiki lamps on either side keeping mosquitoes away

a cat would occasionally drift by and a horse would neigh

and the chickens were going to roost in their houses.

Satisfied by steaks grilled and eaten in the backyard

and boiled corn on the cob from the garden

we would sit for hours and talk about nothing and everything

watching the swifts drop drop into their chimney nests

while bats fell from the eaves hunting nighttime bugs.

And so most of our summer days would end this way

perennially rising with the Tulips and the Daffodils

so permanent that when there came a summer

with which the ritual

did not come again . . .

The animals all gone

the house long ago sold

and you are all dead.

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

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