Speakers’ Space • August 7, 2o25

Community Poem

Please may I thank 

the sunset light of August

for clambering into the house

via the front door wide open

like a litter of puppies

bringing joy

and joy

and joy joy joy

as I shuffle

toward the back door

with a black bag

of garbage. 

This light in August

brighter at noon

warmer than June

passing July

into the late summer.

In this August in light I dream

sometimes of a moments

so incredible, maybe moments

in August let existence and dreams

reside in a time of forever

within the vastness of stars and 

the darkness between their firmament.

This light in August is

gone before you know it. 

Brilliant sun that so quickly slides

into dreamy timeless twilight. 

Losing ourselves in games and dramas

and moments too true to be real. 

Then, at last, street lamps flickering on

to remind us we must go home.

This light in August casts long

long shadows and high hopes the month

plays well with others. Here on the coast

we wait the year for these moments

in the sun, and when they come we

relish all that’s made them, and

all they will make going forward.

Shadows will lengthen and then recede

and we’ll wait again for the sun.

The Hunt For Red August

Oh sailor beware the morning

each sky red: ash falling 

from wild Canadian fires

or it could be the blood 

rising up out of Gaza.

This light in August is waking

my inner Twain, marking with solidarity

as the record breaks, the coldest winter

being a San Francisco summer.

The morning is waking

the dream is hanging on

this light in August

what’s the time remembered

what’s the work that fed us

with money to find a home

      working under the blazing sun

America holding the faceless gun.

This light in August with its

slowly fading sunsets presages

the fall that will inevitably come

to wrap us in its darkened embrace.

This light in August… let it shine.

Let this light take away all the

darkness that’s enveloping the world

and people’s hearts. Let this light

remind us that kindness and love

is the answer and that it can begin

with a smile… little random acts of kindness

to a friend or a stranger. We can all make 

a difference spreading this light in August.

This light is August 

is a candle in

a moonlit mansion 

lit up in an orange 

jack-o-lantern 

comes early 

and sings to us all

in the dark keys.

This light in August will get shorter

in October. That’s what lamps are for.

This light in August is on my birthday

and I blow out nearly a half-century of

candles, though I often feel like a college girl. 

A filament of this light in August

reverberates from the bombs of “Little Boy”

and “Fat Man.” I pray this country has more 

sense than it did in 1945 or even yesterday. 

This light in August is a gift, which belongs

to no one and everyone and I hope we can share.

This Light in August

reflects from the dust of this world,

the very grit of the world, and so invites us

into our own reflections.

This Light in August

illuminates the blue pasture of our sky,

its passing flock of cloud, and in this way

inquires of us ever so politely the where

and what are we called to illuminate likewise.

This Light in August comes glow slowly, cozily,

in the morning, as I do beside you

every morning and every evening.

This light in August 

will make us see

guiding the clairvoyants of peace

and enlightening our intention

with summer's compassion. 

Peace on earth

love everybody.