‘Summertime Madness’
Danielle Kurtock is a chronically ill mom of four. She chooses to use her art skills to cope with the daily challenges she faces and believes that she needs to paint exactly how she feels each day. This piece was created and one of her best days in over two years.
Summertime Madness
I
Green grasses grow cold
over your shoulders
under this endless massive wind.
Time has grown old,
and many times, we’ve jumbled
just don’t let this wind catch you.
For you are lying below,
senseless in shadows,
a creature not born for this world.
While the newborn meadow
sheds light on your brows,
golden, as though a tiny tint of life.
I ran again to the horizon,
and this time never to be back.
“Here she comes again.”
II
Snowfall.
I craved for silence,
in that cave under concrescence,
and that was when whiteness came.
Shattered flowers fluttered in my hands,
with your lips so tender I could not sense.
But I knew you were there,
cause the air went moist,
it never before did, just in my presence.
Sunset, as spilled garments and ointment,
brushed petals off my hair.
Bursting snow lustered into shiny little flames,
they all disappeared,
when you came.
Another form of silence
was the beating of our hearts,
and the breath we exchanged,
after you called out my name.
III
Sweetness spiraled, in talking things
that we don’t really own.
Like how I held your arms,
and how they stifled like stone,
how we twisted and twirled
until the night itself shone.
Like “burning” a mountain,
before we had to run.
We set sunrise to it,
and the morning was more fun.
Sweet in inhaling, shivering to exhale.
Because we trembled, in a frenzy
of madness that turned cold
no more that we can hold.
Already not little, alas.
Cause what we hold ain’t not what we own.
IV
Let’s mop mosses from the rock,
so that we have a place to sit.
July is blistering, we could wait for rain,
while I tell you ’bout the rest,
before this drizzle drains.
Been to the countryside,
been my imaginary savage.
Not really a savage but you could guess
the mess.
All in my mind.
Summer showers are stingy. So were you.
You may not remember,
but that’s the story I knew.
We all have those summers
we one day wade through,
to find we’ve lost and found a dream,
that concurs in all heads.
Before and after it
the cave’s light was dim.
Here a bit of fire, and there
another skim.
“Summertime madness we call it,”
she chuckled before she went on.
Siyan Sienna Chen is a student writer with a focus on poetry and fiction. She serves as president of her school’s Poetry Club and has published work in school and university-affiliated journals, including translations of Louise Glück. She is also involved in literary editing and dramatic writing, with an interest in the relationship between language, performance, and emotional experience.
