Another upstate summer day
ubiquitous heat
generating
unchanging,
sticky,
tacky boredom.
A pair of girls,
unbound, escape to
go tubing in the Kinderhook,
undulating in the
stream’s rocky flow
together.
Afterward, walking
up country pavement
glossy with tar bubbles
under burning feet,
strategizing for shadows,
they roll their black tubes back.
Another summer passed as
usual, seeking the cool
green spots where
updrafts rise and breezes
send chills to wet
teenage skin waiting for fall.
Today's prompt: from RWP: Take a word that’s part of you — your name, your birth month, your favorite animal, your guiding principle. Write that word vertically down a page and use the letters to start the lines of a poem. When you’re done, you’ll have an acrostic poem.
Great! Final stanza above all.
ReplyDeleteWe had no idea how great we had it, did we?
Thanks, Dan. What I would do now for a 1975 summer.
ReplyDeleteWhen I look back at my childhood, this is what I think about. I feel that cool water, those hot feet. This poem makes me both happy and sad. Is there any way we can go back?
ReplyDelete- Laura
I wish it.
ReplyDeleteAn acrostic times four... I was challenged with just the one. I enjoyed the memories.
ReplyDeleteHad no thought of doing an acrostic word more than once! A playful challenge, and you pull it off. The last two lines are especially good, and offset the bright tone portentueously.
ReplyDeleteMakes me want to go back to the beach.
ReplyDeleteI really like this too! Very clever to give us four stanzas and the last one is particularly good.
ReplyDeleteI seem to be remembering bits and piece from my childhood and tubing. Love the passage of time in this piece as well!
ReplyDelete~Mark
from Therese B -- Oh, my! I know Kinderhook Creek! My sister Catherine wrote a beautiful poem about the creek. This poem is beautiful, too! I love how you used August four times. I think it's August 11th, no? Thanks for this trip back in time.
ReplyDelete