I’ve watched them from where I sit
The ghosts of summer running
The children fresh once
Grown and gone rainbows
splashed to gray laughter
Split like thunder clapped in the dazzling
Sun that slips time behind clouds
Lightning sizzling their pink skin silver
Their strong embrace of long days
Let inching go fingertips short and frail
Brief exhaustible youth
Those wild echoed screams
No wonder why old eyes close
At seeing what they’d heard
Lanning Lee 