The Summer of Winters

Breath forms grapes of mist in vanishing clouds
like budding flowers in the gardens of Babylon,
in the Summertime,would have been

as all along my lane frost feathers the stone
like the giant fans used to cool the pharaohs,
in the hot airs of Memphis,in antiquity

while dark clouds bubble and burst
as furiously as Mount Vesuvius,
on the peoples of Pompeii

like pyroclastic ash clouds,darkening the skies
and sending us once more into winter,
frozen anguish,once more.