Summer

--Conrad Aiken

Absolute zero: the locust sings:

summer’s caught in eternity’s rings:

the rock explodes, the planet dies,

we shovel up our verities.

The razor rasps across the face

and in the glass our fleeting race

lit by infinity’s lightning wink

under the thunder tries to think.

In this frail gourd the granite pours

the timeless howls like all outdoors

the sensuous moment builds a wall

open as wind, no wall at all:

while still obedient to valves and knobs

the vascular jukebox throbs and sobs

expounding hope propounding yearning

proposing love, but never learning

or only learning at zero’s gate

like summer’s locust the final hate

formless ice on a formless plain

that was and is and comes again.