Summertime is a mixture of sweet and loud.
Cicadas are almost deafening
And you can’t listen to the cicadas without lemonade.
My childhood footsteps run down through the grass and the trees.
They track mud through the house persistently,
As if I needed to retrace those steps one day.
I will miss this heat:
The way it drenches you,
Melts you to the point where you only want to
Lie there in the grass and surrender to it.
The asphalt burns into my skin,
Blistering and blackening the soles of my feet by the end of every day
Because I’m too stubborn to put on a pair of shoes.
(Stubborn, but mostly eager to prove I’m tougher than they think.)
I will miss that too,
The feeling of charred calluses and tender soles
Nursed in icy bathwater each night by callused and tender hands.
I will miss the way dusk fades into dark
And how it temporarily blinds you,
How if you’re not paying attention, night sneaks up on you
And scares you half to death once you bother to look out the window.
I will miss the crows,
Showing up at the end of every July
My own personal usher, leading me into autumn.
I could never forget running to the beat of marching band rehearsals,
Kicking up rubber and shaking off sweat,
Hating every minute of it, but loving it just the same,
And living for the sound of the starting gun.
And I will always wish I could carry it all around with me,
The screaming heat,
The scars and the way the crows
Flick their wings at you as if you’re in their way.
But I want more than that.
I want to escape.
I want new heat, and new dusks,
Just to remind myself
That I had it good,
But that it can always get better.
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138,191 Literary Works • 672,080 Reviews
Hi,
This is really beautiful. The title instantly drew me in and the first line was really great. I love the personality which shines through in:
"And you can’t listen to the cicadas without lemonade."
The second stanza is wonderful. I also love "Lie there in the grass and surrender to it" but I feel the other lines in that stanza didn't hold the same energy.
I love "blistering and blackening."
I think the following two stanzas were a bit weaker than the others and could use stronger imagery.
I love:
"I will miss the crows,
Showing up at the end of every July
My own personal usher, leading me into autumn."
It flows perfectly and your use of language is beautiful.
The last three stanzas could be more visually powerful. I'd take another look at them.
A pleasure.
Hope this helps,
Jas
This is incredible. It captures almost everything I love about summer, which is a subject I've seriously been probing for a while now. Like the reviewer above said, you use truly stunning imagery, and when you elaborate on a subject, you do so with just the right details to give us a vivid picture, no more, no less. It's got so much emotion in so few words.
There are some phrases that feel a little lazy to me, which really only stick out because you have so many gorgeous phrases. For example,
The "don't want to do anything" feels weirdly ordinary in this piece, because you use so many new phrases, how you describe summer as sweet and loud. That description is absolutely perfect, so then, when you use phrases that we could hear in ordinary conversation, it seems like you just weren't trying for a split second. It's the same with "bother" in
And I actually disagree about keeping your stanzas the same length. Maybe it looks more professional, but it feels more real to me if you divide it how you want to.
Wow, you have a great sense of imagery. The little things you choose to explain, like the sound of the cicadas, leaves a lot of flavor for the reader and adds interest. It makes the poem unique and more personal. One thing though, the stanzas aren't consistent. If they were all say, only 3 lines or only 4 lines, the poem would look a lot more professional and the flow of the poem would be that much nicer. Good job though. It is definitely great!