Number 9

Falling for summer’s charms

where hummingbirds

drunk on sweet waters,

flit among rising heat and wind,

honeybees land in open-faced flowers,

the blue touch paper – Earth

fanning flames

we burn on our Augustine towers,

old lives left by the roadside

like torn flesh peeled away and melted down

what we knew crumbles around us

caught inside a dream

we cannot see through

plumes of smoke making circles –

unbroken rings, those cinders of O

Ra on his throne in triumph

around his finger turns this round world,

all broken things caught up,

a shroud of light unravels

as we go swimming in his fires.