On the peninsula where I live, the sunniest, hottest days of summer are at summer’s end. The water in the ocean and in the bay has finally warmed enough for leisurely swimming, but these lovely days are tempered with a premature nostalgia. The August stanza of Tamara Madison’s poem Summer captures the feeling:
August, alas, must be Sunday:
there’s still time, the days
still balmy and long,
the sun still hot, Mars still
bright in the warm night sky,
the sea still glittering
with the coins of the sun.
But the shadow at the end
looms longer every day.
—read the rest of Summer by Tamara Madison
I enjoy having a creative endeavor in which I am an amateur, and have no expectations to be otherwise, so in the early nineties I picked up a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards. I did a few drawings looking at the objects in an upside down way and concentrating on negative space. The book inspired me to take up writing with my non-dominant left hand. I had a red marker handy and began using that. I wrote first drafts as quickly as I could, the script messy and huge. I transcribed the text with my right hand for legibility’s sake. There was something about this new way of writing that unlocked early memories is such a vivid way that they could not be ignored. The originally arbitrary choice of the red marker took me to the red river valley of my earliest memories. The outcome was Deep Red, my second full-length book.
I continued writing everything by hand, left first, then right for the next several books until I convinced myself that the two sides of my brain had merged, and I switched to a fountain pen, my dominant writing hand and as before, the unlined notebook. National Left-Hander’s Day is August 13. If you are a right-hander, why not celebrate by giving your left hand a shot? Here is a summer poem from “Deep Red,” first written with my left hand and a red marker.
Heart Murmur
The summer I turned seven
I had rheumatic fever,
which sounded like romantic,
but wasn’t.
I spent the summer indoors
because the sun made my nose bleed
and my fever rise.
The doctor in Wichita Falls
said I had a heart murmur
and that my tonsils would have to come out
when the weather cooled.
Lying in my grandmother’s bed,
with my paper dolls and pop-up books,
I heard my mother tell my grandmother
that she was taking me to live
in California.
In California, we stayed with Aunt Lucy
who bawled me out for saying crap
and made me go to bed at nine.
I was scared, then, of the dark spaces,
hallways, closets, the oncoming fall.
—rom Deep Red, Event Horizon 1993
I recovered and by the next summer I took up a life-long pursuit finding a good place to swim. Here is a new poem I love by Kate Young Wilder, though written in late July, it is perfect for August too:
Early Morning, Joshua Pond
Overhand and overhand
I pull my way through stillness.
Soft as cloth the pond
enfolds my swim.
My legs a pair of scissors
across this warm surface.
My breath a prayer, a joy.
This swim, a hope—a hymn.
I sing of late July.
I know the words by heart.
—Kate Young Wilder
Your Turn
What do you know by heart? What might your summer song be? What lyrics might you write with your non-dominant hand using a crayon or a colored pen?
Post and post images by Donna Hilbert. Featured image by Nathalie, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Full poems used with permission.
- Poet Laura: Summer’s End - August 5, 2026
- Poet Laura: One Fine July Day - July 8, 2026
- Poet Laura: Going Fishing with Dad - June 10, 2026
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