High Summer -- by Mimitig

The summer sun burns hot and high
Long into the night

Sultry afternoons lead to
Languid evenings

Dallying in conversation
As the sun slowly sinks
Over the sea in glorious pinks and purples

Leading to memories of other
Long hot summers

Parched grass, rivers flowing sluggishly
Swimming when the weeds
Fluoresced bright green
And punting was easy in the shallow waters

Further back
One Midsummer Eve

A dance, a Ball, a Commemoration Ball
A little girl, too excited to sleep
With a house full of visitors
Watched the pretty ladies
Dress in silk and satin frocks
Watched the Uncles
Preen in penguin suits

Further in the past
Another long hot summer

Young lovers arrive
In Split
On a blistering afternoon

So hot a post-war modern woman
Shrouds herself, head, shoulders, to the waist
In a shawl
The only one she has is black
She doesn’t know why
She looks the same as all the women
On the shore

Then from a yacht
A man is wheeled down to the quay
The men, in awe, take off their hats and
Bow their heads

It is their leader
Their hero has arrived

The post-war modern man, in shorts
Hastens to remove the brown leather cover
Of his new Kodak

Snap
Black and white, though faded now
My parents witnessed history
Tito arriving

In high summer