Summer Nights

Summer solstice arrived along with a beautiful, full Texas moon.  I think two days ago was the official longest day of the year timewise.  I stood on my deck and watched the stars pop out long after regular daylight faded away.  The summer air drifts over the hills and I miss mom and dad.  I remember sitting outside and watching the deer eat the pears from the trees, standing at the top of the hill at night and talking with dad about the infinty of things, holding hands with mom on the porch in quiet afternoons watching her beloved birds flitter around the porch.  The hill country is where I belong.  Someday I’ll get back there.  I’m on the edges now. I can see the hills from my apartment.  Someday I’ll go home and walk the road by the river, where the air brings sleep and rest, where the hills know my name, where darkness brings peace instead of angst.  I’ll buy an old truck and grow a garden and have the grandkids visit for a week at a time and stay quiet watching my own kids wonder just what it is that the grandkids see in me.  The summer nights make me melancholy.  But, soon, it will be way too hot to enjoy the summer nights and I’ll retreat indoors along with the rest of the world and wait for summer days to end.  I wonder what I’ll dream about then.