Summer Dark

Sometimes I stay at the river too late. Past sunset, past the point of good sense. The mosquitoes find me. I stood in the water this summer evening and made photograph after photograph, chasing a mood I hadn’t caught just yet. I knew it was there.

I felt it first as a teenager. Staying out well past dark, lying on the hood of a car, talking with friends. The river, low and steady, whispering through the trees. The trees hunker down at this hour, like they’re going to sleep. The water reflects whatever light is left. That specific quality of summer dark. Cool air falls. 

And almost not there at all, the moon, a pale eye watching.