BY LAWRENCE “MACK” HALL

“That August was like a yellow flame” – Anna Ahkmatova, 1917 / Anno Domini MCMXXI / III. The Voice of Memory

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This August is indeed like a yellow flame

Death writhes among brown-burnt withering leaves

The grass is as sere as Macbeth’s acrid soul

And garden hoses drip in futility

The sun-bleached visage of Ozymandias

Might frown upon this blighted desert wrack

For not unlike the Ancient Mariner’s ghostly crew

The usages of summer drop and decay

But look…

But look above the last barren clouds in the west –

A tiny sliver of the promising moon