Dog days

Prontobard (2022)
Under the unrelenting sun,
the grass becomes crisp and brittle—
straw like—starved of relief from rain.

Many rays try to vivify the skin,
but they cannot be absorbed within,
they cannot enter without moisture.

It is at the whim of nature;
a well-timed storm may burst it to life,
to germinate from unlikely seeds—

or it will die; leave dust-patched dirt:
the sign of a glorious summer,
and the mark of the heat's extreme.

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