Dried up old cactus
yellowing in several limbs
sitting on my kitchen window
I'd given you up for dead
but you've done it again overnight
with a tasselled trumpet flower
and a monstrous blare of red!
So it's June, June again, hot sun
birdsong and dry air;
we remember the desert
and the cities where grass is rare.
Here by the willow-green river
we lie awake in the terrace
because it's June, June again;
nobody wants to sleep
when we can rise through the beech trees
unknown and unpoliced
unprotected veterans
abandoning our chores
to sail out this month in nightgowns
as red and bold as yours;
because it's June, June again.
Morning will bring birdsong
but we've learnt on our bodies
how each Summer day is won
from soil, the old clay soil
and that long, cold kingdom.
Elaine Feinstein
contemporary
