I wrote about walking during the day, as it now noon here.

Outside

It’s an oven outside
The air mostly just hot, still,
what you might expect
at noon near the summer
solstice on a desert island.
Onions are frying in ghee
for someone’s lunch,
making my mouth water.
Oleander, nature’s poison,
I have never understood why
they are ubiquitous landscaping
for family gardens.

Shade was not to be found,
I wanted to sit and observe nature.
I kept walking and went to school
to pick up a letter of recommendation
our departing principal had readied for me.
I sat outside, enjoying some welcome
shade–the first I had seen.
I read the letter, along with a lot of
Denise’s there was also one Angela tucked in,
a stray from a previous letter, cut and pasted.
I returned it to the secretary. She’ll get it fixed.

The birds seemed to be enjoying the shade
of the jasmine tree and delighting in the promise
of the fruit-laden palms.