Hating the Sun by Linda Lobmeyer

Hating the Sun

 

I can’t remember hating the sun like I do today,

beating us down with its summer scourge.

Hating us. Hurting us.  Killing what we wanted

so much to keep alive.  Pouring drought

into our hearts.

 

I saw a tiny cloud cover the sun yesterday.

A little girl damp at the pool said it looked

like a continent.  The thirty seconds that it spent

hiding the sun held our attention and made it

massive, like childhood or a heart’s journey.

 

My friends, you all have been clouds for me.

Sadly, many of you have passed

a little too far left, failing to shade me.

Others have been consistent tiny reprieves.

Thank you, even if you were only the hope

of a shadow.

 

And to that giant thunderhead out west,

always churning then passing me by, I forgive you.

 

The sun killed the fifty year-old cedar in my yard.

Can a more generous cloud build tomorrow?

 

Linda Lobmeyer

Linda Lobmeyer is an attorney in her hometown of Garden City, Kansas. She graduated Kansas State University where she studied English Literature and Washburn Law School.  In her spare time she writes, deletes, crumples paper and stares out the window.  She also loves to swim at the Garden City Municipal Swimming Pool or “The Big Pool” as the locals call it.

 

What You Want by Linda Lobmeyer

What you want isn’t what you’re given,

like the wild thunderstorm last night.

Maybe you vaguely prayed,

hoped that you wouldn’t

lose that tree to drought, but

you never wanted a clash

of thunder at 2:06 in the morning.

It woke you up and started

you thinking about tomorrow.

You weren’t given the gentle rain

that you hoped for.

If you hadn’t been awake

during the dark sleeping time

you would never have imagined

the path to that little sleeping dream

that you had forgotten.

The path had been so overgrown

with the brush of ridiculous desires.

~ Linda Lobmeyer

Linda Lobmeyer is a farm girl from Southwest Kansas. She received a BA in English Literature from Kansas State University and a JD from Washburn Law School. She works as a lawyer in Garden City. Linda enjoys writing and exploring Kansas on the weekends.

70. To the Stars Through Difficulty: Linda Lobmeyer

We were those children, sun-kissed and half-naked,
under the cloudless sky.  The birds beckoned us
west so that we could see like they see–
more and farther.
We were abandoned to the singing wind.
The sand stung our skin like bees, but
we decided not to care because the sky
was ours completely, empty and full– a dome,

                                  starred or blue.

Let the gray rain fall while we sleep.

— Linda Lobmeyer