Summer's lucidity

I sometimes hear the clock ticking when I sleep.

During that brief period of hypnogogia, before I rise.

Within the day, I also have flashbacks of happenings,

not in their entirety but mostly the smell, how I felt and sometimes the music too.

On some days in the heart of summer,

I sit under the trees to gaze across the fields.

And to get lost in nature’s pleasures,

It’s a thing I’ve grown accustom to.

Needless to say, I’m a creature of habit.

So, I sit, and gaze and gaze some more,

And take memory pictures of what I behold,

In this moment I gaze away into the meadows.

In my sight from where I sit, is a little girl sitting at the sandpit dressed in a pink polka dot swimsuit,

and a yellow bucket hat.

Again, and again, she traps the sand between her palms and gently frees it onto the sand bed.

On the other side, is a lady in an orange sarong.

She lays over a mat on the grass facing the sun.

Sitting on her nose is a pair of white sunglasses.

In my fixated state, I feel the wind's gentle touch on my skin,

as the branches of the trees fan the breeze towards me.

And the soft pinch of the roughly cut red fescue grass brushing against the side of my thigh,

as I reach for my water bottle.

It's filled with watermelon juice.

As the watermelon juice lavishly travels down,

I think upon the blue room at the end of kerksteiger Street, with medieval brick walls.

The view of the haven from its rear window.

The sound of the splashing water as boats sailed.

And the look on the sun’s face at twilight.

These I think upon.

I think of youth.

I think of him and I think of you.

Excerpt from Caroll Village by Margrate Batuo