Breathing Out the Dark<\/p>\n
By<\/p>\n
Jennifer Angelina Petro<\/p>\n
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Come, summer, the earth is opening for you.<\/p>\n
Autumn is igniting secret, slow embers across<\/p>\n
The hillside, and when they seize the air and blaze freely,<\/p>\n
It will be for you as fireworks<\/p>\n
In honor of the long afternoons<\/p>\n
You spread\u2014bee dappled\u2014and seed-floating<\/p>\n
For children to run through.<\/p>\n
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Come, summer, the streams and rivers<\/p>\n
Are inviting your heat to rest in their many cool folds<\/p>\n
And moving pockets of pebbles and stones.<\/p>\n
Sink into their praising hands and laughter\u2014<\/p>\n
All in thanks of you and the shafts of light<\/p>\n
You directed at their faces and the fronds of the ferns\u2014<\/p>\n
You established trails and made for us paused moments<\/p>\n
Of birdsong-filled reflection.<\/p>\n
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Come, summer, hands and backs are readying<\/p>\n
To gather the gifts spring spilled upwards from the ground<\/p>\n
To be sun-fostered and breeze-held by you.<\/p>\n
It is with this thought, this sense of knowing you<\/p>\n
For the first time, having missed you<\/p>\n
In the star-filled expanse of voice-filled evenings\u2014<\/p>\n
This feeling of settling and thanks,<\/p>\n
That the earth offers you a place to recompose<\/p>\n
Your light among the cool, falling asleep roots,<\/p>\n
Until you are ready to rise again with the crickets<\/p>\n
And cicadas, and strum for us another season<\/p>\n
Of breathing out the dark.<\/p>\n
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