a meadowlark’s lazy whistle would drift
across oat-grass and white sprays
of Queen Anne’s Lace 
the summer I was 17 and in love

or strong and clear, it would reach me 
through the open window of my car
as I sped back home from college
by fallow fields’ nodding heads of purple thistle

–like a long sigh of contentment

if I were a bird, it would be my summer song

Today, the noon heat has herded a knot of black cattle
into shadows beneath fencerow trees.
A few counties over, folks are making a last stand
against a proposed data center on auctioned farmland.
On our farm’s gravel road, I am walking
between pastures toward the pond to cool off
when the hot, still air carries a meadowlark’s call to me
–as loud as a siren over the cicadas’ saw and
the low hum of tires on the highway a few miles away.

I’ve never seen a meadowlark,
but I know its song, am too old to know
what summer will sound like
after the last meadowlark is gone.