Summer Night

I’m not one for longing or plumbing depths
in the review mirror – but that memory

– a gasp of sheet lightning. Lucid. You and I.
1980. Side by side in a Dodge pickup truck

bursting with tomorrow’s seed. I was there again.
Then right back. Here and now; staring at the ceiling

between this bed and the summer sky. Eternity
tap dancing through the open window, chuckling.

I want to weep but don’t know why. Downstairs
the grandchildren; smiling in their sleep.

…

Posted on Desperate Poets Open Link

Author: chrisbkm

Chris Morrison was born on the north shore of Lake Superior and currently lives within moments of the Atlantic in Nova Scotia, Canada.

22 thoughts on “Summer Night”

  1. Wonderful the sentiment running through this, the connection of the past and the present. It makes me think how we are wired for linear time, and that if we could experience time all at once. Or maybe we do in certain moments? “bursting with tomorrow’s seed” is fantastic! as is “a gasp of sheet lightning” Just wonderful!

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  2. This brought back memories of being caught in a severe thunderstorm in the dark of night while driving by Mille Lacs lake in Minnesota. It was in the early 60s and we were still engaged. We pulled off onto a side road across from the lake and waited out the storm. Still memorable after all these years!

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    1. Thanks Tom… It’s something how memory works. Reading your comment immediately put me in a boat as a child fishing on Lac des Mille Lac in northern western Ontario. Glad the post could bring you back to a moment in time.

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  6. This poem goes straight to the heart. I can feel it all – that moment, lightning-lit – and now – between bed and sky – “Eternity tap dancing through the open window.” Such fine evocative writing. I especially love the grandchildren smiling in their sleep.

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  8. Coup-contre-coup–the brain is slammed by memory, a hematoma of feeling ensues, then life snaps back into the non-perfect but healed present in which we love and survive. Or so I read. Vivid and very evocative writing.

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  10. It can be terribly jarring, when a dream–whether in sleep or waking–brings us whipsawing from a potent past to a very different present, even if that present is good. The ending with the peaceful children is deft and perfect, as is your title.

    –Shay

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    1. Thanks very much John. Regarding posting it’s really hard to say. I just haven’t been writing at all. I’m working on a sculpture and seem only able to focus on one thing at a time. It’s always been that way, which in part accounts for some of my long absences from WP. I’m glad that at least I’m back at my Reader occasionally.

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