Sitting in an English garden,

waiting for the sun.

Here it comes,

and here come all the sun lovers:

meadow brown and orange tip, cabbage white,

red admiral and peacock, and a fleeting sight

of the uncommon common blue.

Honey bees and hover flies busy by

with other flies I could not name or can’t abide

Slimy snails power nap in flower beds, slugabeds

hiding from the dying heat, waiting for the evening

to devour my bedding flowers.

A welter of creatures swelter like us

in the heat of the day that does not go away

in the dark of the night, though it might

when the lightning and thunder

baked under hot heaven breaks over the heads

of the creatures and flowers that cower in beds,

flaking out, baking, as sullen earth hardens

in Paradise regained,

in an English country garden,

waiting for the rain.