It’s said that one alone don’t make a Summer

but when there’s none at all, is that when Summer’s gone?

And when there’s nothing up there but a shimmer

of dust from the desert superheated by the sun;

and when the sheds and barns remain in silence

from April to October; when radiance that shone 

on midge-full fields no longer flicks on mindless 

scything wings and sideslippings - is that when we’ve begun

to recognise the failings of our tenure?

Will we have the grit to bother to go on

knowing that the birds who built the Summer

have flown beyond the stars; that Summer days are done?