The cathedral of this summer’s heat

At some point, gathering in the withered broadbean plants under the noontide heat I pulled my towel over my straw hat to keep the incessant flies out of my ears.

No let up. No quarter. Day after day of hammered sunshine. Swifts appearing through the saturated blue sky, wheeling at the house, seeming to streak and return to my whistled teeth. All reduced to essentials. Dust. Flies. The dragg-ed kinking hose. Thirst. Smeared glasses. Tools not where they should be. Retreating further and further into the warming fastness of the house- stones walls betrayed as radiators, flat surfaces burnt to the touch, night bringing puny breezes, dogs barking, the ironic nightingale.