Transition

Suddenly we are past the tipping point
And are staring at the body summer,
Her green skin crawling with beetles shimmers
Water, salt from her breast my eyes anoint.
She enfolds me;shoots rustle from each joint.
Dirt crumbling from her, she sheds spring's glamor,
And from her secret places rise odors
Half decomposed into the high dew point-
Not of spring's meadowed fem and lily scents
But fully herself dark entangled black
Charcoal odors from Permian forests.
Rises she from her old self redolent
With the notes of the hive, bees forth and back,
The ants, bees and I, all of us, her guests.



One thing that always strikes me about summer is the smells. I don't have a particularly strong sense of smell and I am a bit quirky in terms of the smells I enjoy. They tend to earthy, complex and not floral in the standard sense, and to me these sorts of complex summer smells are incredibly sexy.

This poem is part of my ongoing exploration of the sonnet form. Normally I write more open forms but find sonnets incredibly fun to write and I am glad to have a bit of time this summer to continue my explorations.

Here are some other poems in the same series:

Full Moon: http://theforcethat.blogspot.com/2008/01/full-moon.html
Secular Poem: http://theforcethat.blogspot.com/2008/06/secular-poem.html
Salamander: http://theforcethat.blogspot.com/2008/06/salamander.html