For One Splendid Summertime Hour
by Kim Hazelwood
This lovely hour
Of ten a.m. on a mid-June day,
The bristle and buzz of grassy flowers shooting up,
Where the greening, budding and blooming are so loud,
They’re quiet.
How sweet the coming of eleven or eleven-thirty,
Last call before it becomes too hot,
Too hot~
Even up here in the east,
Some thousand miles and more
From where I was formally raised,
From the depths of heat in hell.
It all starts to breathe, flooding back.
Winkles in waves,
The summertime memories of being a kid!
That faraway place unfailing with perpetual sunbeams,
The honey amber frolic of youth,
Sometimes it began with cartwheels.
Shrieking from incoming water balloons,
Dirt clod ambushes,
Between the box shrubs, shhh..
Hiding from the boys, those devilish boys,
Dashing through sprinklers,
Slip and Slide,
Drinks from hoses,
Dreamsicles,
Popsicles,
Bicycles.
And then there’s
That high-rise glass of lemonade
Or grape-y Kool-Aid,
Whatever icy sugar fest
Likely in metallic tumblers
Chilled and beaded.
Drained quickly.
Ahh.
Kid time exhaustion
From volleyball and tetherball,
Rock collecting, a prize in quartzes,
Maybe fossils from forbidden alleyways of muddy mysteries,
After Barbie dramas
And 45’s record dance party hops.
Later,
Plopping down on the davenport,
(That’s what my best friend’s family used to call a couch~
They were from Ohio)
All of us kids piled together,
Trying to get as close to the window unit as possible.
Maybe watch,
The Munsters,
Dark Shadows or Gilligan’s Island.
Near the card table spread for Clue, later.
Just to be a kid again,
With this young biopic sidelight heartstring tug
For those rather dear years
I keep so fondly stargazing into
For just one splendid summertime hour.
With that near midday heat lamp,
The beacon blaze casting memories
Never caught in the neighborhood dodge ball lineup
Never spanned, or forewarned
How the incoming recaptures of juvenile junctures
Could trigger such a treasure,
Enshrine it so.
Bio: Kim Hazelwood is the founder and poetry editor of The Green Silk Journal online since 2005. Recently, she had the honor of being one of the contest judges for The Poetry Society of Virginia, and was published in Macrame, a literary journal, with others soon TBA. She is the author of a poetry collection, The Way You Just Shine (2021) and CoyoteBat! (2011,2021), a children’s book. Currently she is crafting a second poetry book. She greatly enjoys playing music with her husband in their 70’s folk rock duo, painting and spending precious time with her granddaughter.
