I Used to Visit my Grandparents in the Summer

     I don’t know if I

remember my family as they were

or see them through nostalgic fog;

  

     I remember sap-sticky hands,

vertigo highs of conifers sprung

from needle-carpets, fireflies in twilight

as if the earth herself were dreaming.

Grass-green, pine-green, swimming-pool-blue,

scared-ecstatic feet hammering lightly

through root-knobbed grass; in my mind

my foot comes down on a wasp –

did that once happen to me,

to anyone?  No matter;

dreams were more real then

than I am today, and

  

     the smell of pine needles

is an old saw

and planks of wood

decaying, returning to moss

and fungi under a tree now a stranger:

we wanted a tree-house,

to hide away our immortal youth,

but it’s not important; turns out

the memory is immortal enough. 

          (complete 4/19/16)