Angie
16
Summer Voice(s)
It’s eight a.m.
Bright
When the sun shines in
And rouses you
From your peaceful slumber.
You’d dreamt of platypi
And their evil schemes,
But
You came out
The hero.
As you break your fast,
The birds,
They chirp,
Just outside your windowsill,
And you swear you can hear
Their tiny feet go pitter-patter,
And you know
The operation has begun.
They remind you
To bath yourself in sunscreen
And wear your brother’s ugly cap
And sunglasses
So the Sun won’t hurt you.
But you know that’s silly
because the Sun is your friend
And the ultimate light of life,
as you learned
before Summer’s bell rang.
They send the mole after you
But you don’t complain,
because you know he won’t care
when you escape his sad,
sad line of vision
And run off to your secret base
so long as you come back before dark.
But today is special,
And you know they won’t yell
even when the stars begin shining
in the dark night sky.
The time before night falls:
You’re a bubble of excitement.
You listen to your freedom fighters
As they report their newest findings
In the field.
Your town doesn’t have fireflies,
So you don’t understand
When Sarah comes back from Aunt’s
And chatters
Nonstop
about catching these magical lights in a jar.
Secretly, you’re green (that’s what they say, right?),
But you know you’re the greater hero
When you understand
That even magical lights
Want to be free
And, wouldn’t you be the villain
If you were trapping them in a jar?
But today is special,
So you save that thought
For a day without Sun.
The mole comes for your team
as the Sun goes to bed
And trades watch with his partner
The Moon.
You know she’s happy today, too,
Because today she looks just like
The glowing, round Sun.
You reach that old small hill
Of yours when the night sky
Begins showering down color.
You’ll always love them – the exploding lights – you swear,
No matter how the mole drones on about
Pole-lution; you won’t use more water than you need
And you’ll switch off lights as soon as you leave,
But you like the pretty fires too much
To choose the poles instead.
Your mouth is crammed with sweets
Just moments after
The fireworks end.
The mole calls you a ‘rice bucket’
But you don’t care
Because you’re halfway to heaven:
Mincing the confections between
Your teeth and tongue.
As you finish your confections
You contently sigh,
‘Summer is nice.’
The mole responds with a long word.
‘Sometimes, summer becomes monotonous.’
You can’t understand why;
Even if you imagine yourself tightly shutting
The door to your room
Your thoughts should be unbound,
And it is they who open doors
To unexplored corners
And creations waiting for life.
So you choose
In favor of answering
To be entranced
By the wriggling goldfish
Trying to escape their fates
In the scooping stall you just walked by.
The stars are twinkling their brightest
When you gaze up
At the round, round Moon
One last time
Before going to bed.
The mole’s words on your way home
Ring in your ears.
‘The Moon is fickle,
Unlike the Sun.’
You suppose they were secret words,
Because he spoke hardly above a whisper.
But before you can begin to puzzle
Over his cloudy words,
Haze settles on your eyelids,
Pushing them close.
You fall into a peaceful slumber,
The cicadas singing just outside your bedroom window.
It’s eight a.m.
Bright
And the sun is glaring in,
Hurting your over-sensitive
sunken eyes.
So you roll over,
And succumb to restless sleep.
You wake three hours later
Thanks to the unbearable humid heat
And your electric fan that broke down
In the small hours of the morning.
It’s too late for breakfast, so you skip it,
And promise yourself that you won’t do so again so soon.
That promise had gone unanswered for a while.
It’s three in the afternoon
When a call from an unknown number
Finally reminds you: you’ve missed lunch,
Finishing up the papers
That were supposed to be done yesterday.
You don a light jacket before heading out
to protect yourself
From the sun.
As you’re heading to the check-out line
With a few quick meals in your basket,
You see a neat array of confectionary goods.
They carry the familiar appellation Moon Cakes.
You linger for a bit,
Before choosing the smallest box
Because you remember that you have
No one to share with.
You walk to the nearby pond,
Scattering the crumbs
Of your late brunch
For the ducklings that trail
Behind their (assumed)mother.
You wonder if the heat
Would be easier to bear
If you were a duck,
one with light feathers
That allow the coolness of the water
To penetrate to your very core.
You realize that you’re beginning
to sound dangerously
close to Holden Caulfield,
And you hope to God
you’re not so dazed.
When you return to your organized chaos,
You’re greeted by the last
Rays of the afternoon sun
Lighting dust motes afire;
A conductor orchestrating
His symphony of dust
Just to mock
their only audience.
You smile sardonically.
You turn the shower knob
Till it reaches dead center –
Between the blue cold and the red hot –
But the water that streams through
Is not the warm temperature
You’re accustomed to;
It’s burning cold instead.
You’re drowning –
Hyperventilating
Almost –
Under the searing rain,
And you wonder when
You became so hollow
That you’re unable to stand
The fall of tiny droplets.
There’s a rush of heat
To your head
When you pull yourself out
Of the rain
And lie down on the cool
Hard ground.
It’s reassuring honestly,
To feel the earth
Right beneath your body.
Not ten feet above
Or ten feet under.
You wake up when night
Has replaced day
And fix yourself a refection.
You’ve been starving for a while.
You take half of the moon
Cakes out of their box
(There were only four);
Today is the Moon-Viewing Festival
Back home.
The paste tastes wrong
And the flour stiff;
Your mind instinctively churns
With a dichotomous analogy.
It’s not long before
You think back to the mysteries
You didn’t solve.
You understand the tedium
Of a stifling summer now,
But the fickleness of the moon…
When you gaze outside your window
To the round, round moon,
You know the mole was wrong.
You leave a message
Just to tell him so.
You realize right after
That you’ve morphed into the mole as well,
And you’ll have to morph again
if he’s to keep his name.
I’ve been such a fickle friend,
You think wistfully, while staring up
At the Moon.
As you settle yourself apace with
the Moon,
You understand you’ll be making amends
Till next Summer.
You dream of the Sun who won’t
Glare and welcomes you back a friend,
And the Moon
Who transforms from a listless presence
To a spirited creature.
You won’t forget that you
Were once a hero,
And heroes save
Those in need,
Even from themselves.
A smile graces your lips as you fade away,
The last shrill cry of a cicada dying in the night.
