Through the Open Window

 

The air, sour and stagnant, 

hung heavy in the starless night

finally breaking with the passing shower,

the change announced by the tree frogs

singing with the joy of a children’s chorus,

unbridled and unconstrained.

The white light of an almost-full moon

slants across the yard;

in stealth form, it slips over the sill, 

casting odd shapes on the bedroom wall.

The summer nights of a childhood

long-passed have slipped in, too—

a time when rest came easy,

tucked between crisp linen sheets

we’d fold into our dreams,

the earthen smell of dampness in the air,

and the sound of crickets

 singing us to sleep.

 

© Ginny Brannan

Image Credit: Alexandr Vasilyev, Shutterstock 2013