Every summer I look forward to Kate Messner’s Teachers Write virtual writing camp. The first week is this week. Kate invites us to go outside and reflect on a time when we felt fully whole. I went outside and ended up weeding a flower bed. It wasn’t too hot, and for a minute, it wasn’t raining. I had a “clunker” line from Linda Mitchell to work with. “August was long of light.” There was a time when we didn’t start school in August, and it felt like summer would go on and on.
Mississippi Heat Wave
August was long of light
Margaret Simon, draft
in a Mississippi heat wave that summer of ‘72.
On the path to Purple Creek,
my flip-flops kept the stickers away
and mosquitos preferred Missy’s freckle-juice.
Covered in Off and Coppertone, we’d hold hands
to cross the waterfall, tip-toe trickle over a concrete slab.
On the other side was an endless pine forest. We’d walk
the path of dirt bikes, side-stepping ruts in the muddy red clay.
Avoiding under-the-bridge where the smoking kids hung out,
we’d wander to the stables, pick out a favorite horse, pretend they were ours.
Endless summer days
stretched out like a Gulf Coast beach
burned our tender noses,
streaked our blonde hair,
became a backdrop to childhood memories.
Reflections on the Teche 
Oh, my!
‘Covered in Off and Coppertone”
I can both see and smell it!
WOW!!! I feel I am there, smelling the Copertone and picking out a horse to ride, too! You captured this moment so clearly!! A favorite line: mosquitos preferred Missy’s freckle-juice. Such a clever way to say this! Thanks for sharing.
Oh I can so relate to those childhood memories, especially ‘pick out a favorite horse, pretend they were ours’… back when anything was possible and everything was simple and worthwhile!
Such a vivid poem!
I, too, am right there with you! I love how you used the clunker, and this:
“Endless summer days
stretched out like a Gulf Coast beach”
Such a sense of place.
The heat literally rises from your verse – but so does the sun-blond hair and the Coppertone (is anything as evocative of childhood summer??). Your lines stir a longing in me.
What a glorious slice you wrote! It was so real, descriptive, and inviting that I felt I was part of your long-ago summer. Well done, Margaret!
Margaret, I love all those beautiful memories on those long August days from your childhood. I love all the intimate details you include. Here are some sweet lines that really put a picture in my head from my own childhood too:
“burned our tender noses,
streaked our blonde hair,”
Margaret, those hot summers of flip flops and pretend horses – bring back my own childhood memories, but none more so than the Off! and Coppertone. We are summer heat soul sisters! This is a perfect slice!
I’ve never heard of a clunker line, but I love what you’ve done with it. Just reading your poem put me back in my own childhood via yours – the smells, the horses we pretended we owned… Wow – I’m there again now.
Reading that first line reminds me of Faulkner’s “Light in August,” but in its totality the poem makes me think about best and the poems that will grow out of this unseasonably hot summer. You have gorgeous images painted w/ words. I hear that long Gulf beach calling.
“and mosquitos preferred Missy’s freckle juice” That is my favorite line!
Kim
I can picture this entire scene..the details of Off and Coppertone, muddy red clay, burned our tender noses. I’m hoping to participate in Kate Messner’s Teachers Write also!