Mahon, Derek: Midsummer

Today the longest day and the people have gone.
The sun concentrates on the kitchen garden
with the bright intensity of June.
The birds we heard singing at dawn
are dozing among the leaves
while a faint soap waits its turn
in a blue sky, strange to the afternoon –
one eye on the pasture where the cows roam
and one on the thin line between land
and sea, where the quietest waves
will break there when the people have gone home.