The Room is Summer's Channel

a sequence

The sections of this poem were written in the “intra-lune” form devised by the poet Robert Kelly.

Kelly invented the lune, a derivative of English-language haiku. The only difference between a haiku and a lune is that the second line of a lune has three syllables instead of seven, and there are no constraints on the content.

The “intra-lune” consists of two lunes with a three-syllable line between them. Again, there are no constraints beyond the syllable count.

I wrote the poem a couple of summers ago but thought I’d share it again.

‘Tis the season…

 The Room Is Summer’s Channel 

i.

Evening opens song
expanding 
into soundless dark.
That we’re here—
that we’re here at all
in summer’s
gutter, moved to speak.


ii.

Thunderstorms gather,
dim the room,
indent the window
where sky sieves
gray through old glass; gray
now blue at
the brink of all black. 


iii.

Even the shadows 
swelter, webbed
across asphalt, fall-
en from tall
dandelions—a
heatwave’s re-
lentless impressions.


iv.

Phantom pain in place 
of human 
touch. The room isn’t
as quiet
as an other would
be. Make do 
with night, reaching through.


v.

Lost in the mind, or
lost in the 
world, I watch a storm
rake over 
the mountain; fine lines 
wind slants
sideways, slurring sun. 


vi.

How morning expands
the window
beyond itself, as
if the glass
were light and the frame
a thing blown
into the margins.