The heat of summer settles like suffocation
and smells dry-green and yeasty damp.
The baby naps after waving good-by
from the crib rails. 
 
Will this warmth that silences wrens full-throated at dawn 
hold him in a soft place as the day stretches into humidity,
to dreams less urgent than night. That dapple of sunlight
through the trees onto the lawn and his half-pulled
curtains – like being on the bottom of the sea, waves a-slither. 
 
He’s well and he’s good, and his people protect him
from hate smoking the streets – how we glance back
over our shoulders to make sure we know what’s creeping up
with stinky torches in shadows of white generals 
on stone pedestals who got rich in slave trades.  
 
Some day this baby may not sleep so easily. 
Blessed in being a tiny guy who laughs
loud when his cup bumps down the ramp.
Lift the cup up again, over and over, for his hand
to knock down: my way of modeling tear-down
what-needs-it in hot-town heat waves.
                        

What? Boundaries of straight lines
or snake curves? Some say triangles,
top down. 
 
Wavelengths from oceans or sines
with the blips of oscillations 
that sing lull-a-byes to open ears. 
 
Spheres: our influence 
on Land. The Sea. 
 
Solids of green, perhaps brown,
some say gold, others the blood
of red before and after life. 
 
The exact angle 
of the sun dog halo
or the invisible 
that fills each
starlight cup? 
Wind modeled
as breath. 
 
I wrote a letter to my grandson
about to be born and said, if
he wanted to know what I held
sacred include milkweed, 
horses, dogs, trees taller 
than houses, blue grass music, 
old stories, loons, the smell 
of heritage roses, a few people, 
the poetry and songs of those
who tell the truth and humming
under starlight. Whales. 
 
As if there are perimeters
– when the touch of sacred 
rewinds like mobius strips 
or breathes at the vertices
of the Reuleaux triangle,
where unlike universes 
seek each other
for comfort. 
                        

Mama served as designated prime picker. 
Gramma’s job – entertain the toddler under two
who loves raspberries but had never picked before. 
Heavy fingered until he got the idea 
of gentle pull and leave the berry hats behind. 
Pick red, red, red, red not green or white. 
Put what you need straight away into tummy
lesson learned and what a vantage point
he had for jewels that hide low.  
Then off we go. Run lanes between rows. 
Pick dandelions. Crawl under the wires
where the canes thin out. Learning is like that.
Concentrate on immediate,
make up the rest as opportunity offers.