The summer refuses to yield to the fall, A heavy haze hangs on the hollow and hill; The triple-digit noon casts a fever on all, And the breath of the valley is stagnant and still. The grasses have withered to brittle brown thread, Where spark-hungry embers wait ready to run, And the counties take heed of the warnings widespread, Forbidding all flame in the glare of the sun. Above Lake Hamilton, the water lies gray, No thunder of fireworks to dazzle the dusk; The holiday sparks have been banished away, For the woods of the highlands are parched to the husk. Where Garland and Madison watched the brush flare, The engines rolled out in the dust and the heat, To battle the fire on the shimmering air, Before it could swallow the timber and wheat. Along quiet highways where iron signs lean, From Marshall to Van Buren, councils debate: The unblinking lenses that watch every screen, The roadside sentries that guard every gate. They question the cameras that tally the plate, And pull back the curtain of digital surveillance, Weighing the cost of the hovering state Against the old virtue of privacy's silence. While out by the river where cotton fields lie, The lawyers and grids plot a different design; West Memphis turns upward to harness the sky, Where solar expanses and processors align. The current is bargained, the contracts are drawn, To feed the vast servers with light from the sun— A land caught between the old parched, burning dawn, And the humming frontier of the modern begun.
