All Summer in One Night
All summer slips past me in one night,
the night where warm turns cool, where fireflies vanish
and autumn begins, even if sunny August & September days seem summer again,
autumn has begun and winter’s always within;
but before this night where summer slips, there was all of summer in one night,
or thirty six hours.
August half over, panic that an unseasonably cool summer would go straight to winter,
the sense that life passes equally fast and two years have gone by largely unconscious,
I planned all things summer for one day/night (and other things summer just happened) –
unplanned swim with childhood friend, our sons meeting for the 1st time, parallel play
not just for children, so conversation was disjointed, but still delightful,
paddle boats in the quarry with cousins, uncles and aunts, fish floating beneath the murky water like they’ve always floated in my dreams and in the lake of my youth, Leawood , Kansas, a long walk along the river, dinner and setting up camp for a sleep out, but first ghost in the graveyard, my sons first game of midnight rider, pure joy, one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock, four, five o’clock, six o’clock, seven o’clock, eight o’clock, nine o’clock, ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock, ghost in the graveyard, ready or not here we come…
only my oldest brother and I actually slept outside in tents, the ground was hard, the crickets loud, the night not yet cool… the best I’ve slept in quite some time…
breakfast with me at the skillet, spinach & onion, lots of coffee and fruit, a short car ride to the zoo, an August thunderstorm while we took lunch under cover, bears, elephants, kangaroos, a carousel ride too many and we barely make the tunnel before the 2nd thunderstorm begins… I run to the car laughing, more like swim, the rain is warm, thick, the day, the summer, all of it within thirty six hours, thick, delicious, the recipe perfect, family, friends, sunshine, shade, laughter, exercise, rest, libation, presence, respite amid August before winter coaxes the season into autumn, the nights into coolness, the fireflies into slumber or where ever they go that final night when summer ends
Montauk reference by poolside at start of all summer in one weekend, reminds me of the following:
November 3, 2004 6:15 a.m.
Meet Me in Montauk (RE: Eternal Sunshine of A Spotl
lucid day dreams or dejavu
memori
evaporating, dissipating
and no one can save them…
“bl
but blunders haunt beyond the specific
smell and look of a gray winter day
forever locked in pain, the sadn
lingers the ache meanders
through grey matter even when the “bl
of forgetfuln
and thus the forgetful end up cursed
not able to search the wounded waters
of regret and hurt to find the part of themselv
that was once whole, spotless? spotted?
nearly extinct elephants in
the circus absurd in the city, the city a circus absurd on a snowy beach
on a gray winter day slipping into darker gray, light snow blowing
sand sleeping below, sand “over rated just being really small rocks”
flashlight photography glimps
captured on degradable film, that led to this lat
attempt at
only to discover what we discover last, time and time again
that the way out is the way back in
only to discover what we discovered last time, time and time again
hidden from the mind is a familiar
not rememberable until dead;
that when given the choice
we chose to do it all over again
we chose against the eternal sunshine
of a spotl
Beck’s voice haunts the surf hazy night
back in gray winter, the snowy beach of my memory
as I search for my father’s hand outstretched
from whence I came and from where
I shall return only to pause,
reflect, reform and return
to struggle to ache to yearn
too often missing the moment;
forever to be enjoyed
