The Best Summer Ever
And there's nothing to worry about
I hold up a clear quartz to the sun.
A crystal eclipse scatters light
across my face.
Kaleidoscope days, pollen seas,
sandy feet and oven nights.
Social plans and sun tans,
out of stock on all the fans.
Hints of far-off daylight
on twilight horizons
stretch late into night,
drives to places new,
drives to places old.
To be inside is to be prisoner,
though to be outside
is to be sautéed.
Yellowed grass begs mercy
as we revel in hot runny sunlight.
In a month or two,
the rains will return
and beneath umbrellas
we’ll be praying for blue
to puncture through
the solemn army of grey cloud.
But what if a day comes, where
yellow and brown triumph,
where our mattresses are
damp with sweat
and scoured riverbeds become
echoes of the trickling streams that
once migrated to the sea.
A permanent hosepipe ban.
And we’ll tell the children
that July wasn’t always
stuffed full of red health warnings.
We didn’t perform rain dances back then.
Gardens exploded with colour
and you could almost
drown in the songs of
bees. Wildfires were the problems
of our cousins, at a smoky distance.
The grass was green, my son.
That’s how I remember it.
Until our new monarch,
King Drought,
decrees that water will be salt.
Crowds gather in his worship,
wearing MEGA hats,
chanting Make England Green Again!
You’re just being
a bloody negative nelly
again.
Isn’t it lovely out?
Aren’t we just having
the best summer ever?