summer skin II

There's a particular skin
   to camping, to
    this time of year:
  it's a little
       evaporated, it
   sleeps next to the shhh of the ocean
it has a new ochre colour
   and
- sometimes -
 burnt charcoal;

Summer's skin knows long nights,
   dripping mornings
  waking up stuffy, it wears
 smoke-stained hair
it has friends and lovers
   brush up against it
it knows sugar-and-salt

it's
  better
 and
  worse
 at the same time.

Sometimes I feel
like the particles of me are
   summer, like
the essence of me
is summer --
 that as equally as I am
human
   I am
          this time of year.

Perhaps that's why travelling
pulls so strong --
I'm in the wrong place
   at the wrong time, half the year.

(Tawhitokino at New Year's.)