These Yellow Fever Dreams

By The Enigmatic Tramp

Summer of ’05
The fundamental joy of being free (at three):
Twirling in abstracts,
I dance with sunshine
And wear frocks
With mustered abandon;
Glee may be a proper-noun
But happiness is common.
We eat chalk-powder fashioned from limestone,
Whet our appetites with art
And these streams call for
Splashing, with our feet.
Set apart, we play, 
I pull her hair, 
She tears my dress,
But crickets break our tension,
And we turn once more to
Bat a lemon ball.

Summer of ‘10
We camp under the stars:
Tiny pinpricks of light.
Around our tents are a flood of lanterns, 
Fire guides us bright.
I fall asleep fast but now
Memories are hazy and 
Night-time yellow seems a
Tad bit lazy.

Summer of ‘12
Noonshine leaking through the
Air-dried, sun-crisp curtains
That we bought six years ago.
These yellow-green ikat patterns
Dancing in their elemental shades,
Throwing dappled rays on tiled floors,
Sitting around, us cousins, all ages
Mangoes dripping salacious curves from lips
As our mothers cut the king;
Summer dreams are for forgetting
The year’s lessons of history.
We hire out our brains
As we sit in front of listless screens
And laugh raucously with Jerry
And laugh raucously at Tom.



Summer of ‘14
If happiness is yellow,
Then friendship is too. 
This campfire burns faster
Than our energy at dance camp,
Our feet stomping and
Liner melting in accordance
With the beat and the beating rays.
These yellow flowers gleam:
A golden highlight in our
Hair, our braids twisted
Away, and our faces
Made fair.
Our morning hikes interrupted
By the bulbul’s intake of worms
Following the clamour that we make.
If summer set tomorrow,
And life would rise again,
Would nature not feel our absence?

For more such poems, check out The Word.