Turquose water barely exists in my mind
I am only familiar with murky grey
With clouds of brown mud, the splash of friends.

The best time to go is always when the lake is deserted
Just loved ones and the empty cavity above the rippling surface
Fully free to laugh, shreik, and be a kid again.

No explanations for the shorts I wear over my swimsuit
Those are the moments we don't care if our hair gets wet and stringy
We stay in as long as possible, until lips turn blue and toes go numb.

Then we swim back, back to the shore and ***** feet
Huddled around a cold firepit, we beg for coals and heat
With none found we finally put on damp clothes, utterly exhausted.

No amount of food is ever enough so like scavenging dogs we hunt
With vicious fingers and starving hands
Until every last crumb in the potato chip bag is consumed.

Those are the days I want to remember
That blissful feeling, the absence of the weight of the world
The days when the swim back is always farther.

We made it so
That lively rock found its way around the sun again
Firepit kicks up and we burn Christmas store shoeboxes to make colored flame
I love those tendrilled heat-waterfalls that fly towards the sky
And disappear almost instantaneously
Inside the boys sing lonely country tunes
The development walls encircle somewhere in the dark
I watch from the lawn chair and stare towards the interstate
Orion takes the dog star for a walk through moonlit sphere

In my flaming eyes what would be seen
I want to know, please tell me
Do you remember what I did? Had?
Nah, neither don’t I

Get up to stoke the fire
Starbright flames twinkle in between the airfoils
Two hundred year old phloem cracks under the stress
What would take my soul maybe eight minutes
Happens in the momentary second
If there was a stellar plane we crossed we wouldn’t have known it
Nor’th we could distinguish the areo-planes from the stars
Sixty more of these and the world will have come far
And yet we have never touched home

Light a cigarette or crack the can-seal
Lets make sure we forget this moment
I’m already buzzing with anticipation
To awaken in that dreamless bedspread

The flames sizzle out now
Someone poured a beer on them
They hiss with a rush as they dampen
A cauldron of dying time-snakes
Drunken songs fill the gravel as the procession begins
We repeat yesteryear for the lack of change
Detergent of any heat
And the ease in which we slumber now
Nature has its fill in the cracking
Flame
Drink them instead

The memories that were made around
THE FIREPIT
My husband had a great idea
I'll build a FIREPIT
It will be like camping.
So with the help of my dad
They dug the hole,
Added built in benches
It was grand...
We had breakfast, hotdogs, chili
Oh yes, Marys chili
She made it on our FIREPIT
We  added neighbors, and all our kids.
Of course samores were a big hit.
One night we hauled the little
Black and white TV out there
And watched THE BLOB....
With our just popped popcorn.
Back then SCARY.......
The stories that were told
Around that FIREPIT
Solving the worlds problems
Which seemed pretty simple back then.
The neighborhood was like a family.
The FIREPIT was a gathering place
for laughing, sharing stories,
And eating....
~
By judy