Texas Summer

By John I. Blair

In outer space, we're told,
The cold is absolute.

Not in this place,
Not in the Texas summertime
When centenary temperatures loom.

When I was young
In summer heat I learned well
To go from shade to shade,
And never fast, but made a pace
Like that of lava creeping to the sea,
There to leap at last into the cooling deep,
Just as I have yearned to plunge
Into refrigerated rooms.

If those who wrote the Gospels
Lived in a climate like the one I know
It was no stretch for them to think of hell.

©2003 John I. Blair