Summer Southern Comfort by the Bard of Bat Yam , Poet Laureate of Zion, Stephen Darori

Summer should not 
be ripe for sadness not
when trees toss their hair
like casual schoolgirls 
but stand otherwise still, 
cool in blind assurance
like feckless flowers 
or fruit waiting to fall
from the vine.

The world overflows 
with secrets but crows 
jeer no matter the season. 
I hear them laughing 
in the mornings knowing 
they will be fat 
as plums on the snow 
when our ground is frozen, 
our branches whip thin. 

I toss my hair and flutter 
my fingers but otherwise 
am still at the window. 
I can't pretend sovereignty 
over trees or plums but here
stories in squirrels, pines, 
dragonflies, nothing 
like people but animate 
them to feel something, 
to glimpse an uncle 
in the forsythia brush,
a grandfather shadow 
in slanting afternoon.

I've been meaning to tell you
that the sky is closer 
to the earth here. It's brighter, 
the clouds have more 
dimension. I've been meaning 
to tell you but I don't 
know who you are, 
just that you are fleeting 
as a butterfly wing 
or dandelion fluff.

When the moon rises 
I quicken the stars, beg
them to whisper my name,
gather tears in the palm 
of my hand and pretend 
they are mother's, sister's.
I fly into the night to comfort 
the moon and tell it we are
some kind of family.