This morning I fumbled to find my voice a line I caught on the wind falling flat as I woke slowly to the radio with the volume turned down too low for me to hear the voice of the news presenter or the erstwhile poet in my head or so it seemed to me then both were speaking in tongues disguising their meanings and covering their tracks like mimes in leotards and slippers and hats with fascinators performing with the strength of Baryshnikov and the footwork of Fontaine parading grace like a circus wheel in some latter day Babel watching a music video madier it easier as my feet kept time better than my head and soon I felt the rhythm even as I heard the beat the rhyme came upon me quickly and I tried to catch it with my lips I wonder how dogs find it so easy to pick a throw when at last I could give the words mouth I forgot them again and only the rhythm returned the rhyme to the tip of my tongue I wonder if Homer ever stuttered or stumbled when ...

We're past the dog days of Summer now Nature while still bountiful is not as profligate or flagrantly female as it was a week ago warming those who rub their magic lamps in the hope of raising a genie but don't necessarily knock at her Durin's Door but speak friend and enter nevertheless pushing the limits of barely passable propriety Sirius's return to the night sky signaled the annual flooding of the Nile and this dog star tucked in Orion's belt figured forth for the Greeks heat and fevers enough to make even Achilles pause in his assault on Troy and enfeebled others not so admixed with bronze as he parching their heads and knees and feet in a way that even the following rains failed to salve and balm in these days of sun burned lawns and shriveled flowers some beauties yet grow and raise their heads the sunflower for instance holding high its many pocketed hive of a head to bees and heat and other tawdr...