>>> Item number 35588 from WRITERS LOG9408C --- (42 records) ----- <<< Date: Fri, 19 Aug 1994 18:35:02 JST Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: Mike Barker Subject: SUB: Summer Thoughts mood piece? comments, suggestions about markets, etc? tink ----------------------------------------------------- Summer Thoughts Copyright 1994 Mike Barker The drone of cicadas swells, then dwindles, seeming to move near and far, here and there. The summer sun is hot. Wet air sticks damp shirt and pants to sweat, dribbling slowly from armpit, greasing back of knee and calf, gluing down my back, and matted in hair on my chest. My forehead is slick, my hair greasy with the heat. Salty droplets gather in my eyebrows, stand on my eyelashes and shatter the sunshine into chromatic bursts of glory, then burn my eyes as I blink. Even in the heat, now and then a child ventures forth. Brown stick legs and arms stretch from blue shorts and white knit shirt as they extend a bamboo pole taller than themself up, up, up into trees, trying to catch big brown burring cicadas in a green mesh net to keep for a while in clear plastic cages. Their eyes are sharp, ears yet in tune to that clattering drone of summer. They grin, even as they sweat. Adults scurry, unheeding. Bus and train, schedules, work and air conditioning, the misery of suits and ties under the sun, all conspire to make sure they will not hear that call, even when it swells all around them. Smiles? Perhaps those of politeness, but no more. Most grimace and groan, feeling the heat, ignoring the song, complaining too long. I? I am a fool, for as the song swells, I turn and look. I smile. I laugh at the sun, and the cicadas laugh with me, for it is summer, and bright, and the innocent strife of those who chase, and the happiness of those who chase no more, but still enjoy the song--that hot delight fills me and overflows in sweet sweat. Summer cicadas, sing! And fools laugh. Loud and long, soft and strong, now and then. -----------------------------------------------------