for P.W.
#1950s #bluerinse #boyhood #growingup #hair #hairdresser #kansas #memories #midwest #mother #nostalgia #wichita
Yes. And the rivers. The wind and the rain. The wildflowers. The marshes
The tender new leaves of the trees, emergently green. The white feathers of the wading egret.
Fog pours in through the half-open windows. Fills our small bedroom by the bay. Pools
Maybe, like Marcel, Monsieur Proust, in Paris, it begins with a bite of a madeleine.
If he could see you now. Really see you. Take you entirely in. As you are now, in these days, places
You, Picasso aigu in your summer straw shading blue eyes and sailor stripes, juggling a bubble of cold wine.
All the way. Your eyes, senses, sensibilities. Fill them
Blonde head under baobab. Sun under shade. You sit on an African day,
Days and nights of pines and stars. Of blue bays, white schooners, top-down
Sunny jaunts, now-and-again treats, with cousins, siblings; and parents along but somehow invisible.
Quite a sight to behold: a woman of sun, reclining on the grass, in a meadow, abundantly recumbent, hair and limbs lush with heat
Those many, sung and unsung, who gave themselves, often gave up their lives, to fight, in wars,
The limpa from Scandinavia. The ciabatta, and the michetta from Italia, also known as Rosetta. The mantou from China.
What we belong to. What we can point to out there; around us. And what a singular gift. Our innate sentience.
After all the rain monsooning through the day, cascading through the leaves of the still—green— with-Summer trees.