Baylands Summer Poem by David Saltaire

Summer has come to the Baylands
the grasses dried stiff and tawny
stands of mustard, ochre ghosts
thistles are quivers of golden scepters
for the hands of sleeping kings.

Lady fennel is still green and sweet
holding up her palms of bright
like an image from Egyptian tombs
her perfume is a sacrament
conferring grace upon the wind.

Tender sage shrinks into shadows
under creosote of leathern green
young Ground-Squirrels zip like lizards
across the path with birdlike cries
Rabbits huddle deep in fragrant shade.

The geese float with abstract purpose
a family I’ve often seen before
upon the surface silvered blue
shepherding their little ones
grown gangly, handsome, wise and shy.

Above all is that pale blue sky
shimmering slightly with earth’s heat.
Comes the wind and spins the seeds
that sew the mantle of tomorrow
in this now bare, desert womb.