This Summer's Child,
Wearing no shoes and acting wild,
With dirty hands and skinned up knee,
Hiding in the leaves of an old oak tree
A suntanned boy with coffee hair,
His time to spend without a care,
And he thought it would never fade,
This diamond of his in the shade
But sure as sunrise meets sunset gold,
This child of summer will find he's old,rom
And with scattered dreams to fly
He'll live again the years gone by
Breaking coconuts for their watery cream,
Pin sticking June Bugs off a screen,
Sucking sweetness from stalks of sugarcane,
A mango, mulberry, orange tree kind of game
Hot summer days of rings around your neck,
washed away in the water of a clear rock pit,
Dodging red ant beds under a Live Oak Tree,
Luring porch light toads with copper beads
Pant legs caught in greasy bike chains,
Neighborhood friends with crazy names,
Butt Builder, Butt Wipe, Toilet Tissue,
Wash Tub, and Mud Turtle Brown
Running in the wind of an airboat in his yard,
And serving drinking men with poker cards,
Taking outdoor bathes in galvanized tubs,
Feeding Rhode Island Reds and selling Chubs
Remember, Dad's Winchester never getting old,
for shooting rusty burn barrels full of holes,
An old black motor scooter with a wheelbarrow tire,
baby alligators in a tank, and a cage of heavy wire
Memories passed of days on the old New River,
Beck Woods Beach, and pee filled smoke to deliver,
Those hyacinth crawling, trail cutting, name calling,
hound dog barking, sky larking, summer days
Oh, how fleeting were those years,
Gone, lost within the salt of my tears,
Or maybe they just blew away in the breeze,
high in the fronds of a Royal Palm Trees