We’re in the waning days of summer—at least, of glorious summer vacation—and I wanted to commemorate these fading, waning days with some poetry.

Ergo, I commissioned Michael Gettinger—formerly The Artist Known as Son of Sonnet—to twenty-three-skidoo up some summertime poetry.  Of the two themes I requested, the second was “The Hazy Nostalgia of Late Summer” (the first was “Back to School”).

There’s something about intense humidity and sunlight at 9 PM that conjure up heady memories of better times.  Michael captured that beautifully in this poem.

With that, here is Michael Gettinger’s “Summer Nights”:

Summer Nights
by Michael Gettinger

Drifting to sleep within the August mist,
the silhouettes of night beget our dreams.
The curling, waving branches in the wind,
or fireflies that imitate the stars.
To dream is but to listen to the world,
and give a turn for quiet sounds to speak.
Accepting all, in stillness man may find
the value he perceives himself to have.
Those hazy memories of summer nights:
they put me twixt those stars and fireflies.