Working on this one today- A poem from March to cool us off in blistering July heat!

Residue

My neighbor is burning his brush
in spite of the wind, which means
all day the pale blue smoke of briar and leaf
will roll over the fields and Howland Pond,
nest in dropped bittersweet, the gooseberry
thickets and cat tails that narrow Shingle Brook
to a leaf-brown thread
that falls through the little woods,
finds the Eel River,
where there are no more eels
or elvers. When the smoke clears
the ash-black scab on the old hay will glitter,
bits of sky trapped in pools
of hose water will tremble.
For a little while
soft cinders will go on falling.