Cicadas, Bullfrogs and Honeysuckle

I was taking a night drive through the country and all these memories came back to me and it was wonderful, so I wrote about it :)

There's little that I enjoy more 
than driving through the country at night 
with all the windows down, 
the oldies station struggling to be heard 
over the bonfire-scented wind
that blows through my hair 
and causes my shirt to flap,
like a sheet on a clothesline.

And if I listen closely, 
I can hear the cicadas and bullfrogs
singing their love songs,
serenading me
on a warm, sticky summer night.

They remind me 
of those family gatherings 
at Grandma's house
when no one wanted to leave.
And we all stayed until well after dark, 
and Uncle Bobby would sing 
and play his guitar for us in the back yard 
as the younger cousins fought sleep.

As I pass honeysuckle vines, 
the glorious, sweet scent 
sends me back to what seems so long ago,
when I was young
and running barefoot through the yard
with my imaginary friends.

And at night, when I felt sad
and lonely, I'd go to my window 
and look at the stars, 
knowing that for every star I saw,
there was a person out there somewhere
who could be feeling the same way
right at that very moment.

And as I see the lightnin' bugs
flashing through my wind shield,
they remind me of all those sweet
summer nights, 
spent running around with a mason jar,
trying to catch enough lightnin' bugs 
to generate light to read by outside,
under the full moon.

I keep driving with a heavy heart,
but the good kind of heavy,
because it's heavy with good memories
of cicadas, bullfrogs and honeysuckle.

Reviews

[Robert Parlange]

Summers in the South. You captured it well with your poem. Good use of the senses: sight, sound, touch, smell. The memories of past summer nights brought everything together. Good job.

Line three, “will all the windows down” should probably be “with all the windows down.”

[Sarah Flanigan]

Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't notice it.