August

The air arrives at the lake shore
From hours of traveling
Over the vast, bright blue
And a million white glints

It swirls the sand
And the hair of a boy
Stooped for a smooth stone
Blue-gray like his sweater

The air flows over
The dirty-white boulders
Where an orange and black butterfly
Flaps, then glides, into the breeze

The air moves through the grass
And the parallel tracks from the mower
Releasing an aroma that’s sweet
Like tobacco from a pipe

It sweeps the cuttings
From an open picnic table
And clears the painted-green top
For my notebook

Like the air knows I’m looking
For an outdoor-desk
And this, with a seat on either side
A choice of what to face:

Dogwood and green leaves
Where a bird
Greenish-yellow and black-masked
Flutters to steal dark berries…

Or the waves, and a single sail
Gray in a shadow
And at the tiller, a red speck
A man steering away

Or, my realization
That for the lake, and the sky, and the trees, and the birds
This weekday is no different
Than those when I was a child

But for me to see it the same
I first need the air
To rush through my mind
And to take with it—what’s there