Summer Memory at Dripping Springs
© by Tommie Flannery Baskis
Late summer days linger in hazy dreams before the door of autumn. I find in Dripping Springs an old forgotten rose bush by the white clapboard home, abandoned many, many summers ago.
The rotten bird house still clings to a post at the old, Pickett Cemetery; where many children went to dreamin’, laughing and sleepin’ in another place and time.
Wind moves through the dry poke weed, whistling a tune that sounds like flames cracking.
Poke berries; make the prettiest stain…for my aged gingham dress
Deepest magenta, I imagine, will stain my hands.
Barn, gone to the trees, sees no one now; not even secret lovers.
Hay bales, heavy and sweet smelling, sit fat awaiting the autumn damp and mice.
Summer will leave soon; it will find its way back here again after cold winter moons grow tired…
