Summer

If I crept away from
the monitor and proclaimed
that summer has arrived,
who would believe me —

the rain finished falling,
the sun now swinging high
above the horizon, a lantern
inside the dungeons of
a lingering winter?

Or is it the weather reports
of warmer days, languid on
the sidewalks and lawns,
lingering like a considered kiss
on the lips of blooming flowers?

She has crossed the bridge
and summer smiles, so young,
so innocent, so unaware that leaves
will soon turn color and wilt
like loves forged in the heat

of a summer afternoon.  In
the world of bits and bytes,
the days are never hot, nor cold —
they are just days, a calculation
of the passing of time

bereft of events and consequence,
like breathing until it ends.