I love this poem – its rich language and mood, words curving softly through the ephemeral,
timeless landscape of memory, how it gives me pause to reflect on my own long-ago summer nights. 

Summer Night, Riverside

In the wild soft summer darkness

How many and many a night we two together

Sat in the park and watched the Hudson

Wearing her lights like golden spangles

Glinting on black satin.

The rail along the curving pathway

Was low in a happy place to let us cross,

And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom

Sheltered us,

While your kisses and the flowers,

Falling, falling,

Tangled in my hair….

 

The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.

 

And now, far off

In the fragrant darkness

The tree is tremulous again with bloom

For June comes back.

 

To-night what girl

Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair

This year’s blossoms, clinging to its coils?

 

Sara Teasdale (1844 – 1933) from Rivers to the Sea

Image:  Painting by Janet Shrimpton, Summer Floral II