Memories of Home

So I've been thinking a LOT about all that I'm missing out on this weekend, and I can't help but remember a poem I wrote a couple summers ago. Here it is, in all its glory...

I remember...
Laina Breazeale

...misty mornings, chilly and wet, the valley tucked in a quilt of wispy fog.

...the treasure hunts for blue bottles. “It’s just milk of magnesia bottles,” Mommy would sniff, but I didn’t care. I still searched for them, squealing with delight when I found one.

...slamming screen doors and laughter in the house. "You kids git outside! Ya lettin' flies in!" 

...spitting contests, trying to propel it through my grimy fingers like Granny and Janie Ruth, but it always just dribbled down my chin.

...sinking deep into the sand, the cold water licking my ankles, beckoning me to plunge.

...swarming gnats and mosquitoes feasting on my arms and legs even though I was lathered in Skin-So-Soft and Army supply insecticide.

…running among the gravestones, a living, breathing irony—freshly sprouted child playing among the gnarled, sunken monuments to the dead.

…shelling green beans striving to pull out those strings because I hated how they felt when I ate them.

...chocolate-chip cookies and cherry Kool-aid in the scratched daisy cup with Granny Bird. With a red mustache, I watched the black-haired German woman in the blue sweater shuffle around the trailer telling stories of the old country.

...picking blackberries. Armored with long sleeves, pants, and hats, military insecticide lining our wrists and ankles, milk jugs tied around our waist—our holsters for the juicy fruit. “If you eat ‘em all, we won’t have any for cobbler.” Granezes reminded.

…the night symphony beating down the door and windows, singing me to sleep.

But I mostly remember...
...the late night conversations with blaring lights and sweltering heat, blanketed in sweat, weighed down with exhaustion, and enveloped with absolute peace.