I feel as though I will never get warm.I need the searing heat, the pressing humidity, the excuse to lie down in the grass and sleep because it is too hot to move but to sip cool things out of glasses.I need the length of days and the closeness of the sky; the colors deepening in their ripe fullness; the sensuality of pressing air moved only by a hot breeze.Here the air is too thin to hold me- I cut right through.I need the heat because it holds you.
Today was lemonshine instead of sun and I hung the wash very carefully out to dry. Been polishing the mother-of-pearl, coaxing life back into the finished wood, can’t let beautiful things die in dust. These days the wind blows harder, pulling and tugging with scents from days half dreamt, half remembered. My heart pushes with it, shh shh a little longer now dear, have to still it just a little longer. Must remember to tie down the shutters when its time to leave, can’t have things knocking about while I’m gone
The sycamore bark started falling in June that year. That should have been the first sign, but no one remembered to watch; expected anything like what came. Ignore the warnings and you stitch your own demise into your hem. The year she left, it was the summer of the coyote attacks. Everyone was scared. The animals came out at dusk- no one knew from where- they hunted in twos with almost human-like cunning from usually solitary creatures. By the start of July, three little girls had been bitten, no older than 6 and as young as 3. None had died but the men touched their shotguns with light hands and murmured that it would only be a matter of time.
No one would remember that the moon had been curiously full for the past weeks, rising swollen and orange above the riverbeds which overflowed with a higher than usual tide. No one would recall the strange wind that blew in from the north that year; hot gusts that made the treetops dance till they moaned and knocked wires off poles. The wind smelled of blackberries and when it blew there were always more stars than usual. Things started turning up- things that had never been lost in the first place: buttons and keys and knives with mother of pearl handles, bits of glass and fine hair ribbons, gold-papered boxes, shells that belonged to fantastic creatures, and on the shore one morning, the delicate hand of a statue, fingers all broken off except for one, pointing out a judgment.
Summer brings heat and rain and love. Long car rides windows down, the smell of salt in the air as we follow the path of the setting sun, speeding because we can't keep the joy in one spot. The air is fresh-washed, scrubbed clean by the downpour, sparkling clean for the sun and almost electric; it tingles when I breathe it into my lungs
This weekend was fleeting moments with old friends and realizing that the scariest thing of all is that we're growing up. Realizing that the tomorrow which seemed so far away when we dreamed as children has finally gotten here. We have become our dreams
We tried to run again, but sleep got wise to our tricks and she caught up with us this time.
Still, it was without resent that we went to her arms, slightly abashed, like children caught hiding from their bath.
Now in the grey morning she gentles us with a warm breeze and muted skies
I think the world wants me to be in love- the boy with waves in his eyes and summer in his curls tastes of blueberries and lighthouse floors, letters tucked away to be read generations from now and rocking chairs with stories in the sanded grain.
The leaves are coming back you know. A greener green than before. Winter was worth the wait.
Silly lazy, come along now, it's time to get going and lie down now
It's time to put the leaves back on the trees and that perfume on the breeze
And at the end of the day you can stretch out so nice and long that everything turns orange
Wouldn't you like to have a picnic on the shore with me?
Warm up the rocks, lets go- we're so long overdue
(I don't know all the wonderful photographers whose pictures these are, but can't you just taste summer on your skin?)
Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.
