Is Not The Summer Prairie Calling To You Poem by Barbara Attaway

Is not the summer prairie calling to you
Sultry days lazily await your rollicking voice
To answer and cool the afternoon
Only daubers busy themselves in this heat
Building mud huts in dark corners
Of shady verandas

Sun shining not softly but in anger
At absence of cloud or moisture
Oh, that it could shed tears
Not salty, but quenching tall grasses
Hiding mice and hares and snakes
From soaring talons

Know you not the wistful oaks are beckoning
Listlessly swaying, needing your sweet breath
To give lift to their wave
Locusts cling and bid their lovers hurry
Screeching distressed cries of loneliness
On thirsty limbs

Mockingbirds care not to trill melodies
They want your brown eyes, your ears
To enjoy and delight in their musical
Raven's 'Caw, caw' calls out
Repeating instruction day after breathless day
His mandate haunts

Shy prairie flowers blush not on this day
Instead they wilt and moan
They too, desire your adoring gaze
Butterfly and bee take little time to visit
Finding no pleasure in floral dancing
With unwilling partners

Is not the summer prairie calling to you
Will not your fateful rendezvous wait
Until our souls find peace with such vacancy
Emptying this prairie of your essence
Shall you not indeed stay forever
Rippling across and touching us with your sigh