Adelaide B. Shaw
Millbrook, New York, USA

The Summer of 2012

The village is a piece of small town America, a one traffic-light town, a main street lined on both sides with honey locusts. Tubs and window boxes filled with flowers. Old brick buildings. Neat houses and well tended lawns and gardens. A variety of shops. Once. Not now. Not this summer. For sale signs in front of many houses. Some empty, the gardens and grass left to go wild, wither and die. Empty store fronts. The pharmacy gone. The general store gone. A restaurant gone. A card and gift shop, antique shop, real estate, children's shop, food shop. Gone.

People come up with ideas and plans. A community playhouse in an unused building. A housing development on the edge of the village where stands a deteriorating girls' school. A lot of talk and no action. A lot of questions and no answers. We wait.

white hot sky—
with an ancient dance
we pray for rain