Summer Lakeside Grace

In dreams of yesterday - from boyhood in Jacksonville, Florida

Athens, Georgia

July 24, 2014

There were high summer Sundays

so blessed, instead of church

we’d head for Starke.

Unshackled from Seersucker,

kicking off shoes

for swim suits and flip flops

and freedom to breathe,

we packed the family wagon

squirming in the back seat.

While Mom passed out peppermint,

Dad steered us south

to ski the day at Kingsley Lake.

Four brown and freckled

stairstep children carve

the crystal surface to exhaustion

then snorkel the shallows

floating a dreamscape

like airships over fairy towns

with towers of algae and silverside

minnows by forests of lake grass

and plains of fine sand.

Perfect days wane

as we ride home with Ray Charles

crackling on the car radio  –

Sing the song, children.

A half century softens

when his chorus confirms

I can’t stop loving you

and I live again in memory

of a lonesome time

sensing the shadow

of an awful obligation –

growing up means going on.

Halfway home we stop once more

by the random roadside stand

to choose a ripe melon

forged of water and sun

much like our happy lives,

for even now I close my eyes

and taste it yet –

the sweetness of late youth,

yielding.