the other side of summer

i've not written a poem for a few weeks now.  not that i'm terribly worried about writing or not writing.  i let myself go fallow when i need to.  the world has plenty of poems already in it.  still, it's been ungodly hot here the last few days.  well over 100 F.  the wildfires are fucking insane.  the air is thick with smoke.  it looks like orange clouds cover.  & everything is covered in ash.  the power grid gave up the ghost around 3:30 pm & we were without AC or anything else.  electricity is only noticeable when it is absent.  same goes for the internet.  so we took a road trip to at least have some AC from our vehicle until the grid was repaired.  what else?  anna & i have not gone anywhere or done anything this holiday weekend.  the pandemic is raging.  the heat is hellish.  the wildfires are making unholy.  we've binge watched cobra kai & young wallander on netflix.  the former is a sequel of sorts to karate kid [1984] with the two protagonists, danny larusso & johnny lawrence are 50-something men who can't let go of their high school era feud.  the latter is based on the fictive swedish detective kurt wallander created by the late writer henning mankel.  both series are very good.  we like scandinavian noir.  but i really really dig cobra kai.  you'd think the series would be a cheap money grab of '80s nostalgia.  rather, it is a deep dive into growing up even in late middle age.  the writing sparkles, & the editing keeps the pace of the narratives just this shy of manic.  crazy without going nuts.  of course i read poems all the time but my reading lately is slapdash.  i seem to no longer read poetry books from cover to cover.  i read poem to poem.  i open the books up at random pages.  plus i read a lot of poems online.  i do.  i think many of us do.  pdfs, blogs, twitter, etc etc.  digital life is become just life.  i'm glad this summer is nearly over.  this is a summer like no other i can remember.  what comes next?  fuck knows.  but here is an 'older' elvis costello song to lead us out of summertime.  'good night, god bless, & kiss goodbye to the earth'.