Bird of the Summer
I was supposed to fall in love with someone who would be permanent, see, someone who would be around for the longest of times and would be able to tell our children stories about me after I was gone. I was supposed to belong with someone who would build something with me; a house, a family, a birdhouse, a bloody Christmas dinner for all I cared.
I was never meant to fall in love with you.
You came in summer, just after spring had packed its bags and gone to stay with fall. Winter laughed at you because you liked to wear jackets when it was warm; you said you liked to carry things around and it was the only thing that seemed fit.
You let me dig my hands into you when we first met, when you took me to the fields where my family kept the raspberries. You let me take everything out of your pockets, all the clocks and all the gifts, all the lint and all the photographs. I couldn’t begin to explain, even now, how much I wanted to learn about you, how curious you kept me.
You wouldn’t tell me anything about you at first, wouldn’t let me know where you came from or why you had chosen to show up in front of my home one day. You had your bag strapped tightly to your back and for weeks it was my fear that one day you would just take off without saying goodbye. You were a thrill in that aspect and I hung on for everything I was worth.
You weren’t planned.
That’s what made you so spectacular.
you came with the season, as the first swallow sang
a brown headed stranger, with a five-letter name
we planted our kisses where the wild berries grow
my feet sprouted wings and i flew all the way home
You didn’t tell me that you wanted to do this. One day, it just happened. You kissed me by the roses of my grandfather’s garden and your words made me smile. You kissed my cheeks and made them pink, not just because the sun was setting behind you or because it was a bit warm outside.
Your kisses tasted like sunflower seeds and made me think of summer. Your hands were cool against my skin when you spread them along the small of my back. You were perfect for me, you and your backpack and your unexpected words. You were always a surprise.
I didn’t know we would fit like we did. I know we weren’t meant to click like that, to feel so right under the stars and on the chilly grass of June. It happened again under the heat and celebration of July. You were right and I was left, you were north and I was south. We were together and for the slightest of time, I let myself think that you would forever and always be mine.
Your hair changed colors in the sun, especially when you took me to nowhere in particular and let me walk with our hands swinging between us. Sometimes it was auburn and other times it was blonde, and at night when you let me draw circles on the nape of your neck, it was just brown. You were so undefined and I couldn’t help but lose myself in everything that meant.
I still haven’t been able to distinguish why you let me think that you would always be around.
But in the end, I think you just let me live in the moment and made me stop worrying about the future.
my cheeks red like fire engines racing straight to the heat of your skin
and i know our days are numbered,
early bird of the summer
you'll fly south just as the fall begins
I woke up one morning just a few days ago and tasted your sunflower seeds on my lips. If you were here, I would tell you about my trips to the market to find those seeds. Do you know that I make sure to have a few every day so that I’ll remember how your kisses taste?
Because I hope you know nothing will ever compare to the taste of your lips.
I missed your warmth before I had time to register that this was cold. I missed talking to you by the quiet of the strawberries and I missed laughing with you by the glee of the orange trees. I took walks in your normal mismatched pattern. I took myself places I had never been before because I knew that’s what you would do if you were here. You’d take me on an adventure. You wouldn’t think twice about it.
I wished, as the fall came, that I could wear your jacket and find a pocket watch in it again. I wished that I could pull out your wallet and look at all the money you’ve collected; a euro you got from France, you said, a dime from Canada, a reais from Brazil. You even had a rouble from Russia when you went to see just how severe it was in Siberia.
You used to take me to open fields, to forests, to trails that made no sense to me. You always knew where you were going. We hardly took the time to go into the city but we did once walk by a school ground and there was a little boy in a red hat there. He smiled at you and he waved, his cheeks crimson and one of his front teeth missing.
You leaned over then and murmured in my ear, “That’s what I looked like when I was a kid.”
As I pass that place now, there isn’t a little boy in a red hat and there isn’t you, telling me about your childhood as we continue down the road. I stop and link my fingers through the fence that separates me from the yellow slides and creaky swing sets. Leaves decorate the sidewalk and they sing as they stumble along the sidewalk. The wind pushes them along and I can’t help but think how easy it would be to just lose myself in the breeze.
It was November when you wrote me seven words:
Look for me in a red hat.
the leaves changed their colors and the schoolyards were filled
my coat with the patches barely keeps out the chill
you sent me a postcard from a town out of state,
i wish it were warmer and i hope you're the same
When you were with me I can remember the sun setting behind the trees in a flurry of purple, blue, red and orange. And now that the winter is here the sun leaves me in the darkness early. The stars aren’t as amazing as they used to be without you here and the grass doesn’t feel the same. I missed it when you used to sit up and I could flatten my hand on the imprint you had left in the green.
When you took me out-and out was literally out, into the world, into the trees; sometimes you told me to look up into the sky-you liked to use that field of wheat behind my father’s home to trek through. You told me a few times that it made my eyes turn blue instead of grey. You told me that you liked to see me in multicolor.
I just remember kissing you for saying that.
There was just one day, only one day when you took me to the lake. I had been there before as a child, camped with my parents and melted things on the end of twigs with my siblings. I hadn’t been back there since I was ten because everyone changed and no one wanted to sleep in the heat and wake up to the cool.
But when you took me there, I remembered how much I used to love the feeling of the water lapping at my toes while I dangled my feet off the edge of the dock. I remembered the smell of smoke as it curled into the air and tangled itself into the branches above. I remembered everything I used to love about that place and I forgot all the reasons I ever left.
Before you took me back home, though, it rained and you stomped in a mud puddle with me like my brothers and I used to. And then you wiped away the filth from my lips and you smiled. You kissed me under the sound of a crying forest and together, I think we were beautiful.
I remembered you saying I had this habit of not letting you leave my sight. We did share the kitchen, the bed, and a few days before you left we shared the bath. Could you blame me? You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and I couldn’t let that leave me.
But you did leave and I was without sunflower seeded kisses. You didn’t kiss me in the garden or let me skip in front of you when you were the one leading the way. You took your ever present backpack with you on a Sunday morning and started down the road because it was the last day of summer.
the fields where we wandered were golden
now only muddy my boots
and i know i should recover, you're a bird of the summer,
i was wrong to try and capture you
You told me once that you liked sparrows, if for no other reason than you liked their names. We watched one fly away every day at sunset because it always chose to rest on the post of the garden fence. It glanced at us, at me, and looked at the horizon.
And then it flew away without looking back.
Flight
Flight
I have this hope that doesn’t die that you will come back to me. I know we aren’t meant to be together and that I’m supposed to marry someone in a church somewhere. I’m supposed to bear at least three children and have a second honeymoon in a beach cottage. I’m supposed to forget you, see, supposed to throw you away like you were nothing more than a sunset.
But you were a sunrise and no one ever forgets a sunrise.
I remember all the clocks you kept in your pockets and all the photographs you kept in your jeans. I remember how your hair used to flare a golden color just before the world succumbed to darkness. I remember how you used to laugh with me by the orange trees and how you used to kiss me by the raspberries. I remember the kiss you gave me under the applause of a storm and I remember the way you used to smile when I drew silly circles on the nape of your neck. I remember you but I really only wonder if you remember me.
But I miss talking to you by the strawberries the most. Won’t you come back to tell me that last story about the time when your grandmother caught you sneaking them out of your fridge when you were nine? Won’t you tell me good morning as you make me breakfast even though it’s the early afternoon? Can’t you, please, just hold my hand one more time?
Won’t you come back to say goodbye?
I think of you now because the weather warms itself by the stove and the birds have started singing in the morning like they used to when you were with me. The fruit is blooming on the trees again, waiting to be picked, the juices within waiting to run down your chin. The world is calling you back to me. I think you should listen.
gone is the pale hand of winter
here is the first flush of may
and soon I will discover whether birds of the summer fly in circles
or just fly away