heralding the end of the Alaskan summer, where summers have no real sounds, except for cars on the highway, planes in the air, magpies screeching in the trees.
Summers so different from my childhood, where the moon made no difference.
In my summers, cicadas were thrumming loudly, June bug skins on screen doors to be picked off.
The smell of tar, sticking to your bare feet with gravel crunching under bike tire wheels, the taste of wet foods, none to cook.
Legs burning on car seats, breathing labored with hot, wet air reverberating with the fierce heat lightning, one thousand one, one thousand two…
But the moon always came with a promise of reprieve.
This moon, like a street light, where my streetlights were barrels.
Rusted with flames licking out around the edges as our summers burned away in our yards.
And the harvest moon overshadowing the end of those summers.
moon from rooftop garden
August 25th, 2010
