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.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 