One Summer Day
It
is hot.
Dry withered grasses lie flattened
By blasts from a blazing furnace.
Though separated by one hundred fifty
million kilometers,
One hundred ten degrees of fury
Have dried out my mouth and nostrils.
I’ve been told that
Only mad dogs and Englishmen would
Wander outside on a midday such as this,
but
Here I am, neither a mad dog, nor an
Englishman,
Desperate for shade and drink.
Only a nearly dried up
Mud hole offers relief to me,
And to the pig planted there.
Dying of dysentery,
Even among friends, must be awful-
But dying of thirst, alone and unseen in
this barren land…
The heat is so intense that even valiant
Cicadas silence their shrill piercing
songs,
And birds seek shade in some other world.
Just when the temptation to join the pig
in her wallow
Becomes a conscious death wish within me,
A sound other than wind whistling the
grass
Reaches my parched ears;
A battered, struggling-to-breathe-jeep,
gasps to a stop
Beside me, and a friend reaches out his
hand.
“Goin’ my way?” he asks.
“Of course, I was just about to
start walking. . . .”
“Well, then hop in,” he says,
opens the handle-less door
From the inside, and clears a space on
the sunken seat.
With a chug and a shove and a grinding of
gears
We’re off, but not before
He offers the first of many bottles of
water.
—Jonathan Beachy, San Antonio,
Texas, is a correctional health nurse. He
delights in sharing hope (such as in this
poem) and defying despair (such as in his
other poem this issue, p. 2) in the
belief that transformation by God’s
love is possible for all.Drought
of '81
Death’s nauseous odor
Sweeps along the
Scorching wind,
Buzzards fat, ugly
Eyes bulging like the
Bloated bovine carcasses
Littering shriveled fields
Frozen citrus leaves
Rattle a death chant
Daring any would be
Spring growth to reconsider
Wood-fired pots
Boil brackish water to stew
Yesterday’s bones one more time
Beans brittle and
broken
Pierced by beetles
Useless for seed in famished soil
Barely cover the bottom of
A gunnysack
But for today, beans and bones will
Keep death at bay
Vines without branch or
wine,
Imported spirits grant scarce
Reprieve from children whose
Cries become whimpers become silence
Distant flickering lightening
Fails to find the rheostat and
Rain remains stored overhead
Will today’s heat
Thin the air enough to
Ground the eagle,
Or will it rise. . . .
Will yet unbroken trust
Sustain the praises of a distant Maker,
Or will death’s odor likewise
overtake us?
“. . . I will
exalt the Lord,
Who sustains my life,
My salvation and my strength,
Though all grow weary, though all faint,
I’ll wait for him, for him I’ll
wait. . . .”*
Or will I?
—Jonathan Beachy. Adapted from
“Eagles’ Wings” by Jim
Croegaert, Copyright © 1974, Rough
Stones Music, 827 Monroe St., Evanston IL
60202. All rights reserved. Used by
permission.
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