Born in Maryland a half mile from the crossroads of Falls and River and twenty miles from The District..It was all still farm country then
At night in the late spring, when the three of us kids were finally allowed back onto the second floor sleeping porch, we’d whisper and laugh and finally settle into the soft buzz of twilight insect choruses and the sonic squeaks of waking, hungry bats and wait for the fireflies' first blink. There would inevitably come the final piping bird call, though we never knew it was the last. And then the distant roar of Great Falls would return to drowsy awareness, through five thick miles of hardwoods to our South.
At some point in there the fastenings of the day, with all its' busyness, would slip loose behind the eyes and with that, consciousness would fuzz. Then from the shadowed surrounding fields, ghostly Whippoorwills would begin their call-and-answer haunt, in the way they do that disquiets every child who hasn’t yet learned the language of “star-to-soul” that many elders know ushers in every single rising night. And though disquieted, we each still slept, joining the deepening stream.