last dream about camp

i dreamed of the windmills again -

four big gentle giants towering over the blue-green mountains,

whirling round the clock like out-of-sync ballerinas,

clumsy & dressed in bruised white tulle. everything rushes

back when i see them, flashing like the

arms of the windmills:

six a.m. birdsong filtering in with the weak dawn light,

waking up far too early, silverware clattering on the tables as we

upset all the dishes clapping on beat, the hot air like a suffocating

blanket as our clothes stuck to our skin, whitecaps on lake champlain

sparkling in the distance, twenty-knot wind & ninety-degree

heat red flag days hanging limp from the pole, laughter, gravel paths

crunching underneath our feet as we hurried to

the next activity, waterbottles strung with friendship bracelets,

cabin rivalries so old we're all friends at this point,

shout-singing camp songs over one hundred years old, taking

showers in the morning & using up all the hot water,

pinky promises made with people you suddenly want to

know much deeper than you do, listening to taps echo

gently across the night from our cozy bunks,

the mountains on the other side of the lake always the same color

except in the evening when sparks

from thursday night campfire leap through the twilight as 

we sing in hushed & beautiful voices we didn't know we had,

about spiderwebs & rose red & leaving on a jetplane, about

camp & life & love, lighting candles that glow softly

above the dark lake lapping at our ankles,

and then we look up & the windmills have turned to blinking

red dots on the purpling horizon. 

and then we wake up & it's time to go. i 

dreamed about the windmills again and that's going to be

the last dream i have about camp.

(one of my camp friends wrote me a letter. the last line is scrawled

in half-cursive all the way down to the bottom,

until next year)