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It’s been 50 years. This is a collage of my memories from “The Summer of Love”, 1967.
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Falling from the prom
first love stuck
to the seat of the car
till Beach Boy good vibes
lit my quarter-carat ring
as it snagged on my impatience
and scratched at your freedom
and one rainy Monday Monday
in a miscarriage of spring
you returned it to the jeweler
who confessed the stone was flawed.
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Ten stairs down
in a choke-filled, red-eye cave
we found a collage
of wine-bottle candles
and short black beards
where daddy-o played chess
and argued on absolute bongos,
and espresso-laced poets
beat cement floor philosophy,
and black leotards
on bar stools sang
in dilettante protest
till someone spun Baez
and laughed
when I just ordered tea.
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No cooking in rooms,
we ate pop-tarts cold,
connected the dots
in philosophy
pretending to like home-made beer
and the rain fell
on Glen Yarborough
and we knew the war
wasn’t over
but Camus didn’t care
and Nietzsche’s God was dead
so we slid brown leaves
to the A & W
and waited for mail
from home.
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It began in May,
that shoeless summer,
long hair hung low
between hot bikini tans,
salt water steamed
from our backs,
eyelashes and dimples
crossed the railroad tracks;
there were lines
and moves,
and always forget-me-nots
growing from our cleavage.
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He followed me
to green music nights
to deep-lidded eyes
in bell-bottom mirrors
where we listened to Dylan
and danced to the Doors
and slid down the hill
playing and laughing
between tangled hair
and a purple-beaded dawn.
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House-mother asleep
I slipped with you
in the bark-soft rain
up waterfalls
to your winking lake
where you wet my lips,
St. Christopher pressing
into my breast
and the red canoe
rocked over the edge,
smiling at
tomorrow’s raised brows.
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He said he liked
the way I walked,
sang Dean Martin
with his motorcycle cocked
till I went with him
to Sehome Hill
and he stopped being Dean
and the meadow grew thorns
as he twisted my slap
grinding into the shock
knowing I’d never tell,
for back then
women blamed themselves.
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Overheating,
your ‘59 Fairlane
got us there
to cruise Birch Bay
and puzzle over
the Ode to Billy Joe
and we answered yes
to Gracie Slick
while smokey sunsets
stopped the show
and you held your stomach in
as we laughed
across a Sunday-funny dream.
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We rode the night
on magic carpet street signs
where Joni sang hair-flowers
and headband crochet,
and the Taco Time spilled
and stuck to bare legs
as I felt your jacket comfort
in Sergeant Pepper incense
and the pull
of your blue-light eyes.
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© 1993, 2017 Betty Hayes Albright
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1967 was a watershed year, a time of great change for many of us – personally, socially, politically, and spiritually. These memories took place in Seattle and Bellingham, Washington. It was a long, hot summer…..
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(a re-post)
Seasonings 