LONG ISLAND SUMMERS

I’d go back
for just a moment,
perhaps as long
as one day and a night,
enough, I think,
to relish what I loved
about Long Island summers:

Scents of ragweed,
seared grasses,
almost-too-sweet roses
in the heavy summer air…

Glittering waters,
hot, hot sand
and tiny shells
hiding in the drying
seaweed margin of the tide…

Early mornings
sun like a glowing peach
soft-lit hazy cool
’til nearly 10…

And thunderstorms
some afternoons
that bruise the air
and break the back
of humid heat’s oppression…

Cicada-noisy nights,
lit here and there
by sudden silent sparks
of spectral yellow, green
and random
like imaginings or magic,
to be captured
briefly
in a jar…

It’s the fireflies I miss the most…

_{copyright  July 2006 by CLRedding}