Summer is knocking at my door

It is threatening to come to my house already, even though it is only May. Summer in the deep South is a bit like torture at times, don't you think?

Yesterday after I had showered and dried my hair, it was hard for me to put on my make up because my face was damp with sweat, and I looked at little Ada, whose hair was frizzy with curl and heat, and I said, "it's coming isn't it, sweetie?" Summer is on it's way.

The first summer that Ada was born, and we were fighting each other every step of the way as I tried to get her to nurse, our air conditioner in our apartment broke. We lived on the third floor, and all of the heat rose up to meet us and surround us and tried to drown us. Ada, her tiny infant pink self, was drenched in sweat, as was I. And yesterday when I saw her curls wet around her forehead from the heat, I was reminded that she and I don't do so well with the heat. It made me think of this poem, which is my plea when summer comes in the South.

Heat

O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air--
fruit cannot fall into heat
that presses up and blunts
the points of pears
and rounds the grapes

Cut the heat--
plough through it,
turning it on either side
of your path.

(taken from my book, Bartlett's Poems for Occasions)

Swiftly summer is making it's way here, and I am not sure that I am ready.