This morning I remember the porches & swings
of all of the summers past —
the songs that were sung in time with the
rhythm and the chains that
squeaked and clattered and swung
in the nights,
before mosquitos,
watching stars and lightning bugs
dance together in and out
with katydids and crickets
and all of the grass bug sounds —
and right after supper,
the mourning doves
sailing along the shafts of the setting sunlight
between the elms, facing west.
There were 4 kinds of swings:
one on the back porch for
big dipper searching and philosophers,
one on the side for being up after dark
and one behind the flowering vines for
holding hands and such —
and one for a child
hanging from a tree
that took me up
above the world
and made the locust sounds come
in and out
and cooled my neck from
sticking braids
and
“let the cat die”
for no reason whatsoever.
Jo Scotford Rice moved to Martha’s Vineyard with her family during the winter of 1965. A loyal contributor to Poets Corner, she died in December of 2013.