Autumn becomes me

Hace casi un mes que no estoy aquí en la red, en la blog. I haven't been on my blog in almost one month. And what a month! I had some pretty desperate moments of wanting to drop out of school as I attempted to negotiate my time, balancing between three executive boards, classes, work, and home--what with Thomas being ill and all. But he's on the mend now, happy to say. It was a long six weeks, worrying about him and having the added stress of a sick husband. And I am quite enjoying my semester, although I often think I have more to do than is possible to do in 24 hour days. C'est la vie.

In any case, I didn't come on here tonight to write about any mundane goings-on; rather, I wanted to post a poem I wrote a few weeks back when I had been mentally railing against the ridiculous Louisville weather as I drove home on a particularly sticky evening. I watched the sky turn from bright blue to pink and orange, not able to enjoy the colours for the heat. The beauty of the sunset was pushed back from my consciousness, as if I were appreciating a painting through a periscope, though, and I suddenly realized as I felt the heat and all the people enjoying it, how futile it was for me to pretend that hot weather is a thing I enjoy. I also realized, in a moment, how silly it is, more generally, to consider the weather we have in Louisville between May and September to be the thing called "summer"; it is not. Furthermore, it is an implied lament that I don't leave in a place where September is more autumn than summer. To have the stifling heat of the summer survive into September... it's just not fair. This poem is an expressed feeling about what a Louisville autumn really is: a disgustingly unpleasant period of time, free from breezes, cool rains, pleasant smells, or shade. It's hot and oppressive and dangerous and exhausting. And silly. So here it is.

Kentucky's Ohio

and what is autumn
anyway
in this stygian pocket
of the river’s ridge
the heat and damp
swallowing the spine of
this twisted river body.
We’re tucked in:
Ken-tucked
in this Ohio Valley summer
where the moisture hangs
and the mosquitoes multiply.

Is it October yet?