While I'm not what you could call a good-old-days fan, there was something about playing outside on a summer night before necessity coined the term stranger-danger. As it got harder to see, the world took on a kind of fuzzy glow, and you felt like you could win the fastest race. But I should let the poem speak for itself. Hope you like it. 'Pea' : *)

Once there were open windows and unlocked doors.
Summer evenings drew out like musical scores
created during low-key swings in elm-strung hammocks.
The smacking sound was a softball bat lobbing
a homer out of a hollyhocked alley or a vacant lot.
Occasional scream a child letting herself be chased
during a game of hide-and-seek. Shouts were joy
out on a lark; hunting trips reserved for errant baseballs
and empty Miracle Whip jars to store lightning bugs in
as long as they could breathe. Just enough car exhaust
wafted to lend piquancy to lilac, gardenia and marigold.
Marigolds ick, but fresh-mown grass and the healthy sweat
of children switching to playing Roy and Trigger
and the odd late supper of home-grown, hand-shelled peas,
new potatoes, butter beans and fresh bread go miles
toward making us forget what won’t be forgotten.
Screen doors scraw open, shut, open, shut, open
as Heinz 57 dogs and kids conveniently deaf to
adult shouts, and porch swings and rockers sough-
saw-sough beneath grown-ups raring back to trade news
liberally spiced with gossip in voices taking their time
while keeping eyes out for the kids. Dark won’t be a problem.
Big, farm moon beginnin’ t’peek through threads of color.
Quiet slips in on tiptoe. Why, you could hear a rabbit hop.
Think I do, and it’s in your Victory Garden!
Teasee would run and check but nothing makes the mouth water
like ice tinkling in a pitcher on a summer night. Jooooooooohn-neeee.
Oh, Joooooooooooohn-nneee.
Got leeeeemooonaaade. Suuuuuuuuuuuzie, Suuuuuuuuuzie,
come hooooooome. Everyone laughs at the idea
of a kid pellmelling home for the privilege of being told
it is time for bed. What are you, a hundred?
a neighbor cracks to a calling father. Ain’ ya heard?
It’s the good ol’ summertime. Let them stay out
a little longer. Think you were never a kid.
Were you? Tired chuckles chuckle. A radio
announcer’s honeyed vowels drift through screens --
Don Ameche? -- but most folks turned the racket off.
Too nice a night! Might even need a blanket.
By the liiiiiight, someone croons.  of the siiiiiil-ver-ee. . .
Tomorrow? Tomorrow can take care of itself.
Got skeeters t’fan away. Got pillows to get right.
All we plan to count is blessin’s. Amen to
that brother. Amen to that, sister. One life to live,
let’s live it here on the porch watching twilight thrill
to shades of blue and purple studded by more stars
than ever. Ahhhhhhhhhh, it feels good
to get off your feet. Ahhhhh, the way an unclipped hedge-
rose goes to your head when stirred into White Shoulders,
Old Spice and Sir Walter Raleigh. All a body needs.
is the rhythm of a long, slow sunset followed by a long, slow tune
playing in earth’s most popular night spot.



 

(c) Phyllis Jean Green, March, 2004