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Summer Nights
We spent summer nights in the backyard,
Congregated friends and brothers,
And sisters when we had to,
Waited with shoes on, in similitude of sleep,
Until our mothers were in bed.
Then freedom was ours,
The town ours for the taking,
Exclusive rights to everything within reach,
Though we rarely took more than the thought,
Preferring to dream of safaris in far-off lands,
Of adventures and mystery, of exotic places,
But none as grand as our neighborhood.
The lights of a late-night, fast-food, joint
Beckoned to us from several blocks away,
Like a desert mirage -
Root beer for the taking,
And not a dime between us.
But we discussed our plans,
If ever we got a dime or more.
And on occasion we made raids,
To appease our appetites,
On neighbor’s gardens,
With commando stealth, stole
Fresh peas and raspberries,
Ate by moonlight till stomachache set in,
Drank water from the hose,
And pissed our names on the side of the garage.
With the enthusiasm of Stratford bards,
We performed flashlight melodramas
For each other, with no regard for script,
Raw emotion let loose,
Till lights from the porch silenced us,
Brought the curtain down too soon.
With unrelenting vigor, we scrambled
For cover, for sleeping bags wet with dew,
A lump beneath each, a stone or pine cone,
To perturb ribcages and elbows -
And no use rolling aside,
As there were always more elsewhere.
Mosquitoes hovered at our faces,
But we lay in exquisite repose,
Breathed the scent of grass,
Hoped we could stay forever,
Without sleeping or waking,
In the hush of summer night,
And the ebbing rhythm of a sleeping town
To lullaby the cares of Earth away -
A distant hum of cars on the highway,
A cricket playing in the arbor,
And another beneath the back gate,
The rustle of a tom cat prowling the lilac bush,
From the trees above, the melancholy hoot
Of a mourning dove confused by the street lights,
In lazy intervals a hound baying in the distance,
Answered by the yelping mutt three houses down.
The sky was our final bedtime story -
There above us, the awe of firmament to reckon,
The vast domain of our deepest thoughts
On summer nights.
Bats darted across the moon.
Clouds passed the deep blackness of space.
And we lay in contemplation,
Attempting to divine the meaning of Cassiopeia.
I saw a shooting star once,
And made a wish,
But I can’t remember what it was.
~ Daniel F Mitchell
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