The Summer Evening
I remember that one summer evening,
Where I walked along the path as slow as a tortoise.
The sky was like a painting,
The sun the focal point, the clouds the background.
I sat beneath the cherry blossom tree,
On the soft grass.
Then I saw it,
A young girl in a white dress.
She was running across the field of daisies,
Her feet bare.
Her smile as precious as a newborn baby,
Her eyes as mesmerising as dancing flames.
I heard her laughter, and felt nostalgic,
As I saw my younger self in her.
As I walked home, I couldn’t help but smile to myself,
Carrying that moment quietly as a secret
by Uma Mahesweri Viju
Memories are a deep well visited time after time by makers of stories and poetry, but this particular poem is unusual because of its focus being centred on the memory of a memory.
Beginning as slowly and gently as that ‘tortoise’ in the second line, it moves into a central section of movement and mystery: that ‘young girl in a white dress’, who is she, and who is she to the writer? The poem’s final lines answer those questions beautifully.