A Minor Plague

A swarm, a stump, a silent scream

The mud of spring once held in hoofprints and field depressions, probed by eastern tailed-blue butterflies, has dried and sprouted– clover if we’re lucky, but mostly ragweed. Sharp, cloudless skies beat down in the afternoons and persistent winds press at the hedge limbs and thickening stalks of sunflowers, and the ever-encroaching thrum of periodical c…