Summer! Camping season! Sleeping under the stars, sharing the excitement of ghost stories in the dark, waking to an early robin or rooster; the reality can be squirrels dropping pine cones on your head … and then there’s the camping visitors …
OVERNIGHT VISITORS
rumpled sleeping-bags
dirty socks
the smell fried eggs
peanut butter on toast
friends nod politely
during breakfast
prop eyes open
over weighted dreams
before cycling
to the next campsite
leaving signatures
in the guest book
a winning Canasta score
wet towels
and the scent of youth
first published in 7 Beats Here and Now
A Summer Father Here is poetry … interweaving images culled from a wartime childhood with bittersweet memories of a “summer father”.
Lynda Monahan