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Black-eyed Susan Summer The last golden blaze of innocence. I sit elbows propped on the windowsill of my second floor attic bedroom. A child. 1962. The backyard tied in a riotous yellow; black-eyed susans in a flash of glory amass along each fence-row. Like the headband I wear, the flowers hold back the green blackberry and milkweed vines, the sapling trees maple, sassafras, oak. Smalltown, U.S.A. Skirts were long. Mother sewed my dresses for school. It was the last year I could fit in my older brother's cast-off jeans. Kennedy was in the White House. His daughter had yellow hair like mine. This moment, this picture is etched in memory. God planted the black-eyed susans that year. A hope to remember. Before death entered my vocabulary, the word assassination; the country: Vietnam, protestors, hippies, "free love". Growing up in the sixties, the last exuberant summer before the heat of drought. |
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