The rainy season runoff shoots from the drain that pierces a high stone wall.
Summer Rain
The rain falls
fresh as cucumbers
on cobblestones and tiles,
the dust of another summer
washed from crevasses
and curves of stone and clay.
The air is cleansed
of the scent of primavera,
jacaranda
and flamboyant trees
and the whole world
breathes easily again.
For the dVerse Poets Quadrille prompt: Summer
“Summer’s End”
In the shadows of my past, the crow goes soaring higher,
rising from the creek’s mist to the summer sunset’s fire.
Lately a lonely sentinel at the barn’s far peak,
it filters time now through its wings, the past held in its beak.
Yes, I still remember it belting its harsh caw
as it lifted in the air with summer in its maw.
Tomorrow the first day of school, it marked vacation’s end.
As lazy water in the creek meandered ’round the bend,
bound to some deep forest, far from this boundless plain,
I watched free careless summer vanish once again.
For the Sunday Whirl Wordle 608 the words are: mist creek belt shadows forest summer still rising crow filters time sentinel
Image from Juneau Alaska on Unsplash.
Cherry Summers
They sit on the steps of our low front porch,
cherry-stained fingers dropping pits
onto the grass or sidewalk.
“They is good but they is sowie,”
exclaims our tiny neighbor, looking up
at my dad, who sits with her and her brothers,
his mouth, too, full of sour cherries
pulled from the trees in our back yard.
My sister and I spend summer afternoons
picking off stems and squeezing
the fruit to expel the pits,
juice running down our arms
to drip off elbows and pool on the
table, attracting ants.
Bowlful after bowlful is removed from the table
by my mom to make into pies to freeze.
This task of summer is rewarded all winter long
by the crisp thin crust and tapioca-thickened
ooze of sugared cherry gel surrounding
the fruit sweetened by some chemistry
of my mother’s hand.
Those summer days were lengthened
by the absence of the tolling school bell across the street
and by a sun that lingered into night,
bedtimes stretching out because of the impossibility
of going to bed before dark.
“Ollie ollie oxen free,” echoed from
games of hide-and-seek that ranged
from the playground across the street
into our backyard where cherry trees
that offered shade in the heat,
offered shelter from detection at night.
The aroma of cherry pie, fresh from the oven,
whetted more than mere appetites
during all those nights when,
snow piled on the windowsills,
we bit into
the sweet memories
of summer
For dVerse Poets
Image by Joanna Kasinska on Unsplash, used with permission.
Forecast
The frugal rays of winter’s sun, sifted through the trees,
seem to have lost their power. They can’t dispel the freeze.
We watch the speckled darkness to try to find a sign
that promises the advent of a weather more benign.
The purity of winter, frigid and refined,
is melted in the heat of a summer sort of mind.
We stretch out on the beaches of our memory,
viewing with our minds that baked futurity.
Wound up in our mufflers, sealed snuggly in our gloves,
we sit on benches in the park, recalling summer loves.
flip flop
the sound of ease
and summer
not much to slip into
or out of
sand between toes
and other cracks
released in sleep
to gritty sheets
grinding our sleep
and clogging up washing machines
long gone the days of high button shoes
and the shoe horns that went with them.
Waist cinchers
give way to bikinis
and bikinis
to nude beaches
half of the world
flip flopping
rubber soles
and swinging breasts.
flip flops
taking the place
of gasps
as stays are tightened
the other half
burqas and Jimmy Choo
these differences
in freedom found
and freedom
found too slowly
find release in
collapsing towers
conceal, reveal.
flip flop.
Summer Evenings Turn to Fall
Back when we drank summer through paper soda straws,
we played cowboys and Indians, hiding out in draws
that we imagined wilder. Our hearts beat with fear
of fictional opponents who might be drawing near.
We had no euphemisms for our enemies.
We only knew our fear of them, silent, on our knees.
Little did we know then, during childhood games,
imaginary enemies would assume other names.
No ditch big enough to hide, and no night dark enough.
No more cops and robbers. No more blind man’s bluff.
Strange that in those peaceful times the games we chose to play
were a mere foreshadowing of what is real today.
Back when summer filled our cheeks with melons and with berries,
why didn’t we fill balmy nights with princesses and fairies?
Back when life was summer smooth, we lusted after roughness,
as though we’d gain maturity through violence and toughness.
Feigning valor not yet gained, we knew not that tomorrow
we’d have the fears we’d feigned for real––the terror and the sorrow.
Childhood evenings filled with shouts and laughter interspersed
were in reflection adult games that we just rehearsed.
The picture is my sister Patti and her best friend Karen. Note the saddle placed on the makeshift “horse.”
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 