Celebrating summer

ZEITGEIST'S Sixth Poetry Competition
Asked contestants to write on the theme of
“CELEBRATION”

First Prize Winner-My daughter

Celebrating Summer
You're alone, completely isolated yet surrounded by trees, tall, silent giants watching you, companionably. You whisper your secret wishes and they whisper back, in company with the wind and the softly dying crickets. There is something holding you close, but who knows what it is, other than your own thoughts, insecurities and worries that you fight, holding together every fiber of your being.

A summers day years ago, you sat here, skinny legs kicking at the treetops and hair flowing back behind you as you laughed. Hot tarmac burning under dirty, bare feet and the air of summer scent. Lipstick glued on from cherry flavored Popsicle and scabs that were once only signatures of the neighborhood mosquitoes but were now stiff and brittle form nails that persisted in scratching leaving only blood and skin behind. Where had youth left you as it hurried by?

You are at peace, even when the sky opens and begins to cry, beating the floor with angry bullets seeking reprise, matching the pounding of your own pulse and steady heartbeat. You remain in your place to comfort the tears being shed by allowing each drop to engulf you. Steam rises from the hot floor beneath your toes and as the stream of rain hardens you lean back and breathe. Breathe in the air of summer. And in this moment you become at peace with the weeping, whispering world.