Dry Summer
written by: Carl Parsons
The rain that fell during the dry summer,
was its herald the pronged flash of angels?
The autos passing on the country road
spouted up the waters as from deep wells;
but when the thunder shuddered through the sky,
it seemed like boulders dropped from distant hills.
In the space of a single night the rain
broke in sprays of light, flaming off the lake,
as the morning sun stroked the water bright.
But when we awoke and found the earth baked
as before, we touched the dust of each
other’s faces and felt how sorrow’s shaped.
That jagged fire behind those distant hills—
was it prophecy of angels who wept?
For they knew as surely as we, when the
lightening snapped, the awful secret we kept.
Carl Parsons, a former manufacturing manager for TRW Automotive, has had a secondary career as a college instructor of rhetoric and literature. Now retired, he serves as a Master Gardener for the University of Tennessee Extension office and contributes essays on botanical subjects to Hey, Smokies! (an online travel magazine). He has also served as associate editor for Heater, a crime fiction magazine. Currently, he is an active member of Scribophile online writers’ workshop. Born in Parkersburg, WV, he now resides in Kodak, TN. Publication Credits: • Crime Novella, Jukes, to be published in March 2020 by Dark Passages Publishing • Short story, “Judith and Phillip,” published by Foundling House (2019) • Short story, “Another Bus Ride for Sunny,” published by Spillwords Press (2019) • Two poems published with Literary Yard (2019) • Two poems published with Plum Tree Tavern (2019)
Latest posts by Carl Parsons (see all)
- Locust Hill: Chapter XII - May 7, 2023
- Locust Hill: Chapter XI-II - April 6, 2023
- Locust Hill: Chapter XI-I - March 5, 2023
