In mid afternoon late summer sunlight
Soft breeze blows dandelion seed snowstorm
Across baked rain starved lawns and limpid hedgerows.
Hot air arrives from Southern Spanish plains.
Hottest September day for sixty years
In Wales. Even Aberbanc sparrows hide
In darkest corners deep inside bushes.
Biggest tractor I’ve seen roars down main street
In Newcastle Emlyn. Outside Y Cwtch
I drink coffee, eat cake, read Laurie Lee,
I remember in nineteen sixty three,
Shoplifting some banned English language books.
Johnny Angel and I read them beneath
Shady Plane trees on the banks of the Seine.
Warm air softly caressed us then as now,
Tractors were smaller then, coffee cheaper,
Emlyn ain’t Paris but way the air moved,
Segued a Madeleine moment in me.
Reverie broken by shiny blue beast,
I’m jolted back to Ceredigion,
Where it gets hotter as each hour goes by.
Tomorrow thunderstorms are forecasted,
Meanwhile I get mask ready for shopping.

Harry Rogers, on the pavement in Newcastle Emlyn, 7th September 2021.