Summerlands
You walk there
With Daddy
Hand in Hand
Under the apple tree
Marveling at the bloom
The full ripe fruit
The wizened windfall
You run there
With Mama
Down to the lake
Back to the cabin
And for a long afternoon
On the dining hall porch
Talk in a language
Only you will know
You sit there
And savor
The cool of the evening
On the patio with citronella
As your children play
In grass and shadows
While grown-ups laugh late
Through sweet Nashville night
You speed there
In a big red Ford
Like nothing you’ve ever seen
For a walk on the beach
Combing the sands
For seashells in serenity
You wind there
Over roads known since childhood
Crossing bridges and borders
Past old family churches
Down by the riverside
To lay your burden down
You have reached
Your summerland
It is good
But we miss you
And carry you with us
More tightly these days
When you look back
Please treat yourself gently
For what you have taught us
Proves your wisdom learned
one of my friends from brigadoon said goodbye to both her parents this spring. both were old, very old, you know… done being here. but still, she misses them, and i knew her mama because at brigadoon, her mama was nursie. so i wrote to her and told her how although we don’t know what they’re up to on the other side, i could imagine her mama, and mine, and mine’s mama, and a few others i could name from the history of brigadoon, sitting around in the kitchen, at the back of the dining hall, with the fireflies rising in the grass before the lake, on a quiet cool evening like when all the campers have gone on cookouts, and they’re gathered around the table there just munching on pimento cheese sandwiches and sipping leftover orange koolade, and they’re laughing and talking, talking and laughing, just enjoying each other’s company.
this is more words than i meant to write, but i’ve written it, so there it is.