Summer Haze

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if what we had was good or bad, or where it is today ...
The endless days of summer's haze I still recall today;
she spoke and smoky skies stood still as summer slipped away ...

NOTE: I wrote this poem around age 13 or 14, after seeing an ad for the movie Summer of ’42, which starred the lovely Jennifer O’Neill and a young male actor who might have been my nebbish nerd-twin. He even had a nerdy name: Hermie. The movie is about a boy "coming of age" and having his first love experience with an older woman. I wrote the poem "after the fact" as a recollection of fading memories of a summer romance. The poem was published in my high school literary journal, The Lantern, in 1976. The poem is rhyme rich for a budding poet with eleven rhymes in the first four lines: well, farewell, tell, bells, within, din, in, say, today, had, bad.