Enchantment

Photo courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net

Enchantment

On warm summer nights
the porch becomes our living room
where Mama takes her reading
and Dad and I play games
in the patch of brightness
the lamp scatters on the floor.
From the darkness, others come --
small round bodies
clinging to the screens
which separate us
from the yard beyond.
Drawn to our light,
the June bugs watch our games
and listen to our talk till bedtime
when Mama darkens the porch
and breaks the spell
that holds them close to us.

~ Joanne Ryder

I love the images in this poem -- a family gathered together in a porch at evening time and the June bugs watching them through the screen, enchanted.  Our family doesn't have an enclosed porch, but sometimes in the summer we sit out on our patio, gathered around a fire, roasting marshmallows, talking, and laughing.  June bugs often cling to our screen door under the porch light -- maybe they've been watching and listening to us, too!  What images come to your mind when you think of summer evenings?