Stepping outside a silence fills my ears
Taking me back to my childhood
The heat
Intense and thick swallows me whole
So hot the birds don’t sing
The usual distant drone of cars on the highway is quiet
There is a dog that lives a few blocks away
He had become apart of the audible landscape
He too lies still under the protection of his giant oak
Life has become a continuous frozen moment
An ice-cream van slowly drifts through the haze in the street
Playing his high-pitched elevator music to silent ears
No kids playing ball in the road today
To hot to move even for them
Sluggishly I make my way back inside to the cool breeze
Of man made air