american summer

You dance, savor each step,
each sticky pop your bare foot makes
as you peel it from a blissfully damp wooden porch.
Turning slowly in rhythm with the undulating sheets of rain,
rising on your toes with each creciendo,
you close your eyes, and the roaring static on the roof above,
could be waves crashing on rocky shores,
or wind rattling autumn colored trees.
You can't resist the smile, as it takes your lips,
freed by a wind blown mist settling on your skin,
coolly flowing through your feathery dress,
a tactile reminder of the midsummer shower falling around you.
And in the cold, you stay warm
with the presence of that strong, gentle face,
somewhere alongside you
admiring his oblivious daughter's twirls of simple joy.
Oh, i wish i knew you then,
watching the flowing grey sheets
cascade over distant blue mountains.
So simple yet forever unreachable.
That I might understand what you imagined
drinking your beloved small town air,
knowing that one day
you would leave it all behind.
Because i see all this in your eyes,
and i wonder how true it is,
and how you might have changed since,
and if what i see really exists at all.
But i have come to understand
whether in truth or fancy,
still you dance, in time or in dreams,
carefree, eternally somewhere
frozen in the American summer.