from Almost Everything, Almost Nothing

Summer hums the field,
haze hanging over chicory, switchgrass
like drifting question marks.
Water’s rising in Texas
while I pray for rain in Tennessee.
In yellow poplars, crows chuckle,
chickadees chattering around the barn
where hornets murmur, shape a home
under stripped and peeling wood.
Clouds stack, and still the hum
seeps through the air, my skin.
When I turn, you wait on the steps,
ripples of longing between us.