Summer Soundtrack

Our granddaughters come every summer

to the lake where we live now,

bringing with them a summer soundtrack long since gone

that we took with us when we left, years ago, growing up,

and lost somewhere along the way in leaving --

the youthful screams of water play rise in the still air,

swimming and diving, a water fight, the splash of water

sprayed, cold, cannon-balled, on summer days, hot and humid,

and chasing frogs grown lazy along the shore,

too sluggish, like us, to move quickly, but fast enough

to elicit little girl squeals raised in jumping free,

or slick and slimy, held still in hands clutched tight

around his middle, this bullfrog caught,

and the sploosh of frog set free again, escape secured,

a quick kick into the reeds along the shallows;

the echo of voices loudly calling out to shore

rings across the water, now, above the plop of oars,

the erratic zig-zagging to the other shore or the distant

island and away; even the sound of silent sun worship

is loud, stretched out and oil sated, a book propped up

or a letter started, to go unfinished, long-hand writing

penciled on an old pad, yellowed and riffling in the breeze,

the buzz of horse flies hovering ‘round,

annoying, fanned away or the slap of skin on skin

in missing, the quick dashing giggle in the rising

thunder rumbling back to the safety of camp,

this summer home where we live --

the soundtrack of granddaughters spending the summer here

returning to the lake our own youth, remembered,

lost somewhere along the way in leaving.