This Summers Winter Is Here To Stay Poem by Keith Michael

i feel the wind rushing through my shoes up, up my legs, up, up my shirts and sending me that cold chill you get when your back and knees go weak. its winter mornings like this when i realize the previous night i must have dreamt of the pacific. a beach in california with the sun just over the surf as the pictures portray. or on an old white rocking chair on an old white porch in the deep south. looking out between the columns that it was built on. but even in my dream i could feel the cold coming off of the california coast…and i could see the snow clouds forming in the southern skies….and yet i longed for it, i longed for that feeling of familiarity, feeling of love. it was inescapable i could point to a place on the globe, fly to anywhere in the world, step foot on any continent so grand, and still yearn for that atlantic chill. reminding me of the sitting room fire place, a dimly lit room and the smell of cedar and pine emanating its way from the den. a book filled to its brim with all of our favorite books, and next to it, the coat hanger with my fathers robe and his favorite set of slippers.