I sit deep in my deciduous and cedar woods,
shaded,
sweltering in the hot afternoon Georgia heat.
The still air,
like an open oven,
stifles me.
I must escape.
But just as I start to rise,
a cool breeze starts from the creek bottom below,
racing across the newly-mown fields.
Wind rushes
like a cresting wave
up the hill to where I sit,
crashing over me
and eddying
and swirling around me
and bathing me
in an afternoon coolness
that evaporates the sweat
from my face
and my arms
and surges across my saturated pants
and shirt legs,
and drops my temperature,
and begs me to stay,
seated,
solitary,
silent,
submerged
deep in my cedar and deciduous Woods.
Southern heat must be inspiring. A few weeks after I wrote this, the heat got to me again. I wrote this haibun, “Georgia Summer Hot Green”.
