September, When the Heat Finally Breaks
and We Open the Windows
Rain pounds as sheer
curtains dance a damp minuet.
My husband’s shoulder
moves up and down,
under the tightly-gripped blanket
but the scent of rain
takes me back to camping
in a crowded tent, my children
fidgeting and sighing
around me as frogs croaked
and cicadas hummed, until
I thought I’d never hear my
own heart beat again.
The tent roof was green
and dark with seams from
front to back, moving with breezes.
My bedroom ceiling is cracked
from window to window, a dark
fine-lined pathway
with one dark spot. What is it?
A spider perhaps, frozen there,
wondering the same thing as me:
Why can’t I sleep?
© 2018 Brenda Davis Harsham. All rights reserved.
Click HERE to read this month's interview with Naomi Shihab Nye. Her DMC challenge is to write a letter to yourself in which you ask some questions that you don't have to answer. (Please keep in mind that your poem does not need to be in standard letter form.)
Post your poem on our September 2018 padlet. While some contributions will be featured as daily ditties this month, all contributions will be included in a wrap-up presentation on Friday, September 28th, and one lucky participant will win a personalized copy of her latest collection of poetry from Greenwillow Books:
