Burning white hot days, electric thunderous skies, oppressive smothering humidity, claustrophobic preternaturally cool interiors; it’s August again. It was August when you left. The cells of my body, the cells you created, they forever carry your parting, forever try to connect between the veils. Is August nicer there? Is it calmer? Is it cooler?
Tahlequah pushes her dead newborn calf for weeks and miles in the sea, her raw mourning on display, teaching us about grief and loss and complicity and neglect, breaking and expanding hearts all over the world. She brings me to my knees with her pain, with my human shame. So much to atone. In August, mother and calf let go, she begins the road to healing, her pain subsumed, not forgotten.
He went to the mountains. She went to the ocean. They went halfway around the world. Me, I’m running from you in place, August, dripping with salty sweat, evaporating suffocating thoughts with the business of breathing. I keep moving through you, trying to get past you. A heavy, blush pink hydrangea overflows onto the sidewalk, blocking the path, grazing my cheek with a dewy cuff, or is it a kiss? My fingers reach up to feel where you touched me.
August, oh August, we are locked in an eternal heated tango, stomping and twisting, twirling and teasing in a dizzying, exhilarating and enervating dance to nowhere. Aren’t you tired? I throw down my castanets to you my nemesis, my soulmate, my mentor, my match.
Come on, then. Let’s put on our bright colors and straw hats, escape now to our very own luncheon of the boating party, sip on a cool, crisp white, have a laugh with some friends, the still river floating by us on a warm, breezy afternoon. I like this side of you, dear August, and I forgive you all.
Divine Ready 