August

Jesse Schaub

Poem

We spent the sun, so clouds took hold;
Air’s heat dissolved to pouring cold;
To douse July came April rain—
Though spring, by then, had shriveled gold.

Fall downpour flooded glass. The pane
Became a whirlpool: dulled, to drain
The brightness of its bulb-lit room.
Mankind was Abel, weather Cain;

Yet both, each year, were forced to bloom,
Then wilt, and once more death resume.
Though rich or cloudless, any sky
Cracked clear across by skyward plume

Will soon regardless go awry—
Spew thunderous sparks, raise oceans nigh—
Through nature’s adventitious hold
Of cards deciding wet or dry.