summer

July Daughters

/ lovizmytrio / 2 Comments

Mythili

you are a fish
swimming all day
a proclamation against the heat
losing all of last year’s fear
and washing it away with intrepid dives
into the pool that you proudly stand up in,
reminding me that you are
almost (but not quite)
a six-year-old mermaid
whose summer of swimming
will soon end with a splash.

Isabella

at your sisters’ request
they have segregated themselves
into the far back.
most oldest daughters would love a chance
just one
to be alone
but your lip pouts its way down the interstate.
i sit beside you and flip out two auto bingo boards.
within five minutes you have won,
within fifty miles your board is almost full,
within three hours we’ve gone through
every Extreme Nature card
and your only request
is that the ride will never end.

Riona

you are an echo of your sisters’ enthusiasm
the squeals of delight
tagging just seconds behind theirs
as we pull into the hotel parking lot
you shout, “They have a fancy fountain!”
only a nanosecond after Isabella.

this i could remember most
as it happens daily.
but what will make me most proud
will be the fourteen flights of stairs
that you climbed up
one foot on one step, another on the next
(remember when you were almost two
and couldn’t even stand?)
not one time, but two in a ten-hour day,
my soon-to-be-four-year-old
advancing to the top
of a milestone I will never forget.

We Have Won

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

Twenty perfect pictures
A cry-free four hour drive
Thrilled squeals that last for miles
A dip in the end-of-maze pool
A local restaurant in a sea
Of red jerseys and sauce
On the way to the stadium
With an ocean of red jerseys and lust

It’s summer and the sun has set
On fourteen flights of stairs up
The arch glistens from city lights
Alongside the river of all rivers
Our room sees it and smiles with pride
For we have won, we have won,
Our team, us, them, we have won.

Statistics

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

temperature: 87
sunset: 8:30
ETA: 8:52
humidity: 70
miles: 5.2
mosquitoes: 1.1 million
times down the slide: 100
gulps of Gatorade: 50
cars waiting to pass: 10
songs on the iPod: 40
streetlights lighting up: 11
runners speeding past: 2
girls on a bike: 4
love: 100%

It Isn’t Enough

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

it isn’t enough to be ten feet from
the door of our tent to the shore of the lake,
to paddle out into the cove side by side
for a miniature version of a date

it isn’t enough to swim with three girls
in ring-around-the-rosy circles into the night,
the campfire’s afterglow and the Milky Way
lighting their way into the warmth of their beds.

it isn’t enough to stay for one summer
because it could never capture our midnight swim,
our skinny-dipped rekindling after a week’s absence,
the fact that we haven’t lived,
we have never lived,
until the deep-down,
sparkling starlit beauty
of this moment in Kentucky.

June Daughters

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

Isabella

While at first reluctant,
you have given in to riding
our connected bicycle,
stating quite simply, in your
I’m-seven-and-overheard-your-conversation
voice, “I want to spend time with you.”
Your keen observations along the route,
of roads previously untraveled,
family sightings, and hill monitoring,
only add to the noticeably stronger
pedal power that you offer.
We beat them home and you are as
proud as a new mother, displaying our
connected contraption with hands
outspread in a beauty queen pose,
our time together warranted by
your everlasting desire to win
(oh how I already know you
will always, always win).

Mythili

We are at the beach.
It may be fake (a river turned into a lake),
but you have managed to discover
seashells in perfect conical shapes
(the ones I searched for in vain at the
real beach when I was your age).
We haven’t even made it to the car
(as usual, your lunch lies abandoned
on the table, limp, unwanted)
and you have entered the imaginary
world that has followed you with penne pasta,
fingers, barrettes, sticks, even earrings
everywhere you go, creating characters
with each shell, telling stories with
frightened-fairy tale plots, holding
complex conversations from snippets
of adult talk that you have captured.
You are immune to the outside world,
to the goings on of swimming or interacting
with your sisters, and have given in to
the world where you imagine yourself to be.

Riona

Nothing can thrill you more than the simplest
pleasures (the tiniest pieces of the bigger picture
that we, emptying our wallets, want to offer you).
Here we stand in the intolerable heat
of a midsummer southern day, and I cannot
snap enough pictures of the grin that exudes
happiness in its purest, rawest form, lighting
up your entire face brighter than the glaring
sun that beats down its midday punishment.
In your hands is the infant rabbit, fur as soft
as the skin on your new cousin’s cheek, that
causes you to abandon interest in all other animals
(doves that coo, clucking chickens,
miniature goats begging for food, ponies
with lofty lips who placidly pick feed from puny palms).
The genuinely gentle creature you hold in your arms,
pulling its nose to your chin, clutching it as if
it is your own child, perfectly encompasses
all that it is (everything you are) that I love about you.

A Friendly Breeze

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

with endless shade
to cover our car
and block the roaring
heat from ruining our picnic,
a friendly breeze to
tickle our skin as we
dash like flitting barn swallows
in and out of the
water whose shallow edge
feels like hot springs
on our multi-sized feet,
three bright-as-light life jackets
and a brand-new floatie
(on which we take turns,
carry the baby like she’s in
a bath, and hang from
like patient puppies next to mama),
we have concluded yet another
perfect Kentucky summer day.

Relish

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

What’s not to love?
Peaches and blackberries from here
in JUNE
(I’ve met the farmer, seen the farm)
a petting farm the kids will never forget
the endless two lane roads that
lead to forests, lakes, rivers,
showing off idyllic red barns,
columnar farmhouses,
well-tamed cattle and horses,
and
peace.

What’s missing?
Traffic.
Light pollution.
Unfriendly city slickers.
The rush to get… anywhere, really.
People who don’t know you wherever you go.

What’s next?
Six more weeks of bike rides,
swimming in warm-water lakes,
exploring backcountry roads,
hiking in diversified forests,
and
relishing the place we never
thought that we could relish.

1000 Words

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

what the camera couldn’t capture:
the red circle of sun just after dawn
rising above the soldiers of the night
the road with fewer than two hands’
worth of cars zipping past me
Riona proclaiming, “It wasn’t me”
though no one else is around
the creek bed lush with shadow
and peace on this early morning ride
the heat that seeps from all corners
of the earth, emanating into our souls
the birdlike chirps of three little girls
as they open their cards from Grandma
the tender bite of medium rare steak
for a special dinner for the five of us
the rare afternoon nap under the fan
of the climate-controlled house
the white half circle of moon just after dusk,
rising above the guardians of the day.

My New Kentucky Home

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

This isn’t what I expected.
I imagined intolerable heat
(and it can be)
flat, muggified air
(sometimes it is)
and having to drive 55 miles
to get anywhere decent
(sometimes i just ride the bike instead).

Yes, it is what I expected.
But I didn’t know about
the rolling country roads
(an endless bike trail),
the diversified forests with
trees as gigantic as the
skyscrapers I’m accustomed to,
rivers and lakes and streams
around every corner that bear
bath-warm water to swim in
morning, noon, and night,
bridges that span the lakes,
rivers, and streams in a
magnificent rainbow of
mile-long architectural beauty,
state parks that have no entrance
fees, free hot working showers,
even swimming pools, hotels,
and golf courses, with grounds
maintained as impeccably as
upscale resorts, humidity that
allows me to breathe easier,
pedal faster, and keep my
contacts in all day long,
and
love for my new Kentucky home.

Waterfront Property

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

at times it feels like nothing less
than a gigantic pile of work: the
seven sleeping bags, two tents,
four bags of food, two melting-quickly
coolers, dog leashes, rain flies,
camping chairs, shovel, swim bag,
toiletry bag, overnight bag… it sits in
the dirt as we lethargically carry piece
by piece and load up the two cars.

but with one last look through the
glorious green leaves out onto the
cove (waterfront property for a night),
the girls bobbing up and down in
their life jackets, Daddy with his
fishing pole, Uncle Zak dipping the
oars of the kayak into the smooth water,
i can still feel the tingle of it on my skin,
washing away the exhaustion, the work,
and bathing me in memories that will
build up a gigantic pile of love in my heart.