August as a Yellow Flame

By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall (Rated G)

“That August was like a yellow flame” -Anna Ahkmatova, 1917 / Anno Domini MCMXXI / III. The Voice of Memory

This August is indeed like a yellow flame
Death writhes among brown-burnt withering leaves
The grass is as sere as Macbeth’s acrid soul
And garden hoses drip in futility

The sun-bleached visage of Ozymandias
Might frown upon this blighted desert wrack
For not unlike the Ancient Mariner’s ghostly crew
The usages of summer drop and decay

But look

But look above the last barren clouds in the west –
A tiny sliver of the promising moon