Poetic License
IN THE SUMMER
In the summer
I stretch out on the shore
And think of you
Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.
---Nizar Qabbani
THE SUMMER I WAS SIXTEEN
The turquoise pool rose up to meet us,
its slide a silver afterthought down which
we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.
We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.
Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted
up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool
lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,
we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete.
danced to the low beat of “Duke of Earl”.
Past cherry colas, hot dogs, Dreamsicles,
We came to the counter where bees staggered
Into root beer cups and drowned. We gobbled
cotton candy torches, sweet as furtive kisses,
shared on benches beneath summer shadows.
Cherry. Elm. Sycamore. We spread our chenille
blankets across grass, pressed radios to our ears,
mouthing the old words, then loosened
thin bikini straps and rubbed baby oil with iodine
across sunburned shoulders, tossing a glance
through the chain link at an improbable world.
---Geraldine Connolly
SUMMER NIGHT
Summer night --
Even the stars
Are whispering to each other.
---Kobayashi Issa
A NIGHT-RAIN IN SUMMER
Open the window, and let the air
Freshly blow upon face and hair,
And fill the room, as it fills the night,
With the breath of the rain’s sweet might.
Hark! The burthen, swift and prone!
And how the odorous limes are blown!
Stormy Love’s abroad, and keeps
Hopeful coil for gentle sleeps.
Not a blink shall burn to-night
In my chamber, or sordid light
Nought will I have, not a window-pane,
‘Twixt me and the air and the great good rain,
Which ever shall sing me sharp lullabies;
And God’s own darkness shall close mine eyes;
And I will sleep, with all things blest,.
In the pure earth-shadow of natural rest.
---James Henry Leigh Hunt
SUMMER IN THE MOUNTAINS
Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine tree trickles on my bare head.
---Li Po
SUMMER EVENING SHOWER
The playful breeze is dancing through the dell,
Breaking the azure crystal of the stream,
As if a shower of diamonds brightly fell,
And woke the blue waves from a pleasant dream.
The panting flowers have oped their shrivell’d lips,
To drink the dazzling moisture; the warm shower,
Like laughing mirth, has fill’d their wasted cups,
A living freshness clothes each drooping bower.
The hymn of rosy evening has begun;
The gladsome trees, that wave along the sky,
Shine in the golden glitter of the sun;
The birds that cower’d, as pass’d the rain cloudsy by,
Start from the glancing bushes, one by one,
And, leaping on the green and quivering spray,
Trim their cold dripping wings, to chant their evening
lay.
---Dugald Moore (1805-1841)
Unless otherwise indicated, all Lake Effect Living photographs are the work and property of Sharon Pisacreta.
June - July '11