End of Summer

I wrote a poem about the end of summer a long time ago. A lament to the passing of the splashing and the grill, the sand and the mud, the light of the firefly, and the roar of the cicada. Sleeping in the protection of lavender and cedar, that poem haunts me now from my basement of stored things, as I stomp around in the last days of August begging the heat and the sunshine to do what it cannot –  linger.

The bloom and the wilt. The start and the finish. The launch and the wrap up. Summer opens the gates and lets the students out to play in oceans of seemingly unending light. Summer seduces with memories of childhood adventure until our battalion of work shoes and business deadlines surrender to sandals and cloud gazing. She presses in a cellular makeover. She yanks out an emotional transformation and both emerge in a loud thicket of party-crashing weeds, bees, and butterflies.

My love poem for summer like the front row seat for the July and August championship games, bears witness to, saves a place for, and accompanies my adoration for the unembraceable season of bathing-suit laughter and open-window music. We practice the vacation ritual, the summer camp ritual, and the cook outs while she reminds us what youth is. She comes to us with the gift of heat and sweet grass, teaching us what it means to thirst and enjoy a bath of cool water over our skin and down our throats as a prayer of gratitude. 

A screen porch rocker. A tall tea cooler. Summer. Summer. Summer. She is passion, and smoke, and lanterns for parties on the deck. She bakes us in a bounty of green and afternoon thunderstorms. An audience to our cliff-diving dares, a listening ear to our scorched-by-the-bon-fire stories, and a unit of measure for all our score-keeping, she promises to return long before we have agreed to say goodbye. Boarding passes and sleeping-bag journal entries are the souvenir proof of her impact. Delight has asked your snapshots to the dance of retelling tomorrow.

When I find my end of summer poem, I’ll post it to my blog.