Ashes of Summer

Charred dreams on the hillside
Cicadas hush, the sky turns gray
Photographs curl in the embers
Memories drift like ash away

I trace the outline of the porch light
Ghost of a door that isn't there
Your laughter echoes in the timber
Cracking in the evening air

And I still taste summer in the smoke
Hear your footsteps in the cinders
If home is where the heart should live
Why do I feel it turning to splinters?
Ashes of summer whisper my name
But nothing answers back
Just the wind and the flame

Insurance checks on the table
Numbers where a childhood stood
Neighbors packed in borrowed trailers
Hope weighed down by soot-stained wood

I keep a box of melted silver
Each spoon a tarnished lullaby
Every night I polish silence
Watch the black dust rise and fly

And I still taste summer in the smoke
Hear your footsteps in the cinders
If home is where the heart should live
Why do I feel it turning to splinters?
Ashes of summer whisper my name
But nothing answers back–
Just the wind and the flame

They'll rebuild, they say, stronger beams, safer codes
But how do you measure the sound
Of my mother calling us in for dinner
Or the sap that bled from the old oak
When we carved our names?

I still taste summer in the smoke
Feel your heartbeat in the embers
Tell me, fire, will you remember
The songs we sang in younger Decembers?
Ashes of summer fall like snow
Where do the children of flames go?