Sudden Summer

hogweed

grass

nettles

thistles

suddenly are waist high,

a tiny path

winds down where once were open fields

to a wild wood,

heat and drifting seed

have changed the earth,

cardinal and cinnabar

dissemble thistle flowers,

pools of shade

where bullocks crowd,

kick and flick at flies.

strands of flesh now black on white bones

within the throbbing sky