August is when we look for several meteor showers: the Kappa Cygnids, the Alpha Capricornids, the Southern Delta Aquariids, and the Perseids, a major meteor shower, typically takes place between July 17 and August 24. There are also some weird holidays: August 18 is Bad Poetry Day (I’m not too sure about that one!), August 20 is Discovery Day in the Yukon, Canada, and World Mosquito Day. And then there’s the lack of water; we run the bathwater to the garden, the washing-up water too …
DROUGHT SEASON
I hold mirages of winter 
as the wealth of rambled roses wilt
this languid place of brown grass
prelude to incoming smoke-haze
packed snow imagined on dusty paths
no limit to this Midas heat
I droop over cracked earth
where thistles twist blowing heads
flames captured in a roving lens
clouded by mountain fires
taps draw brown water from the well
and I long for images in white
A Bedroom of Searchlights’: poetry. This collection draws a picture of the poet’s divorced mother, an artist with two children, who struggled with poverty, war, and the realities of daily life, yet still found beauty and comfort in her garden, and her art. From Inanna Publications, 2016.
