Beyond Summer

It seems it is always evening now, and we are outside with the planes—
watching them bank into final approach while you make machine sounds.
I join you in this fascination—at least sort of—and find myself making
sounds I did not know before.  All the while, I watch the setting sun
make a flashy shine on those hunks of metal careening through space
that doesn’t seem as open as it once did.  You were rolling down
the hill this evening while I knelt in the grass, with mosquitoes
biting at my knees, while I made an unknown prayer to the unexpected
joy of having grass and pebbles in my shoes.  And now, in the near dark,
voices quiet before the lantern rising between summer’s thick trees. 
Planes echo to each other and us with lights blinking off and on,
far and near.  Back and forth, there is the certain silence of a bat, flapping.
And I am six again and in the grass where we have set rocks around us
for a circle of safety from the bats flying out from the slats above the house.
And here, again, I note how time collapses on itself, how loss recedes and returns
—and you rest your head against my chest and I rest my chin against your salty hair.
Something enchanting seeps from this scene, and I can smell roses and storms.
Something like loneliness colors the edges as night folds around us in violets.

Katie Clare studied with a wonderful community of poets at George Mason University, where she earned her MFA in Poetry in 2005.  She is the Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Academic Affairs in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University, where she also teaches the occasional course in the Honors College.  Her work has appeared in 3rd Muse and Phoebe.  She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.