Let’s workshop this poem that invites you to move through your summer with primal mindfulness, feeling in the very moment how your acts—grooming, eating, swimming—merge you with others across time.
"Summer Communion" is a deeply evocative poem that explores themes of elemental connection to nature, interspecies empathy, and echoes of historical experience through a series of vivid, often challenging similes. The poem functions as a meditation on shared sensation and a provocative attempt to draw parallels between contemporary acts of communion and historically resonant experiences, inviting readers to consider universal aspects of life and hardship.
The title, "Summer Communion," establishes a tone of unity and connection to nature's cycles. The poem then unfolds in three distinct stanzas, each presenting a seemingly simple "summer" activity that is then enriched by a profound and sometimes unsettling historical or biological comparison.
The first stanza, "Pick burrs and ticks off your pet / in hunched lullaby / like our groom-bent chimp moms," establishes an immediate connection to primal caregiving. The act of tending to a pet is framed with tenderness, elevated to a "hunched lullaby," suggesting an intimate, almost ritualistic bond. The simile "like our groom-bent chimp moms" universalizes this act of meticulous care, drawing a direct line to primate behavior and highlighting a shared, instinctual bond across species in nurturing.
The second stanza introduces a powerful historical parallel: "chill the watermelon in the creek swirl / for electrolyte blessings / like cotton-sun slaves." The image of cooling watermelon for refreshment is initially simple and pastoral, depicting it as a natural "electrolyte blessing." The comparison "like cotton-sun slaves" directly links this act of seeking relief from heat to the immense physical labor and suffering endured by enslaved people under the sun. This simile functions to evoke a sense of shared human experience with elemental hardship and the universal need for basic sustenance and respite.
Finally, the third stanza continues this pattern: "hug a big stone to moon-bounce / along the swim-hole floor / like fire-lung Indian kids." The act of playing in a swim-hole, "hugging a big stone to moon-bounce," suggests childlike joy and buoyancy in nature. This is then strikingly compared to "fire-lung Indian kids." This simile calls forth images of the historical suffering of Indigenous children, possibly alluding to diseases like tuberculosis (implied by "fire-lung") or the profound hardships of forced displacement and cultural loss. This comparison seeks to forge a deep, almost ancestral, resonance between a contemporary, innocent act and past struggles for survival and joy within nature's embrace.
Overall, "Summer Communion" is a poem that uses bold and challenging parallels to expand the scope of empathy and historical connection. It invites the reader to find common ground in human experience, even across vast historical, cultural, and species divides, prompting a reconsideration of shared vulnerabilities, elemental joys, and universal struggles for survival and comfort within the natural world.
"Summer Communion" is a deeply evocative poem that explores themes of elemental connection to nature, interspecies empathy, and echoes of historical experience through a series of vivid, often challenging similes. The poem functions as a meditation on shared sensation and a provocative attempt to draw parallels between contemporary acts of communion and historically resonant experiences, inviting readers to consider universal aspects of life and hardship.
The title, "Summer Communion," establishes a tone of unity and connection to nature's cycles. The poem then unfolds in three distinct stanzas, each presenting a seemingly simple "summer" activity that is then enriched by a profound and sometimes unsettling historical or biological comparison.
The first stanza, "Pick burrs and ticks off your pet / in hunched lullaby / like our groom-bent chimp moms," establishes an immediate connection to primal caregiving. The act of tending to a pet is framed with tenderness, elevated to a "hunched lullaby," suggesting an intimate, almost ritualistic bond. The simile "like our groom-bent chimp moms" universalizes this act of meticulous care, drawing a direct line to primate behavior and highlighting a shared, instinctual bond across species in nurturing.
The second stanza introduces a powerful historical parallel: "chill the watermelon in the creek swirl / for electrolyte blessings / like cotton-sun slaves." The image of cooling watermelon for refreshment is initially simple and pastoral, depicting it as a natural "electrolyte blessing." The comparison "like cotton-sun slaves" directly links this act of seeking relief from heat to the immense physical labor and suffering endured by enslaved people under the sun. This simile functions to evoke a sense of shared human experience with elemental hardship and the universal need for basic sustenance and respite.
Finally, the third stanza continues this pattern: "hug a big stone to moon-bounce / along the swim-hole floor / like fire-lung Indian kids." The act of playing in a swim-hole, "hugging a big stone to moon-bounce," suggests childlike joy and buoyancy in nature. This is then strikingly compared to "fire-lung Indian kids." This simile calls forth images of the historical suffering of Indigenous children, possibly alluding to diseases like tuberculosis (implied by "fire-lung") or the profound hardships of forced displacement and cultural loss. This comparison seeks to forge a deep, almost ancestral, resonance between a contemporary, innocent act and past struggles for survival and joy within nature's embrace.
Overall, "Summer Communion" is a poem that uses bold and challenging parallels to expand the scope of empathy and historical connection. It invites the reader to find common ground in human experience, even across vast historical, cultural, and species divides, prompting a reconsideration of shared vulnerabilities, elemental joys, and universal struggles for survival and comfort within the natural world.
empathy, historical resonance, universal experience, human-animal bond, nature connection, slavery, Indigenous history, shared suffering, solace, summer, communion, similes, elemental, human condition.